2 Building an effective team
Leading a team is a significant element of any leader’s role, and encouraging an increasingly diverse range of team members to work well together can be a challenge.
One way to navigate the process of building a team, is to use Bruce Tuckman’s (1965) model for team development, still regularly referenced today. It involves four stages:
- Forming – team members are testing boundaries and exploring behaviours i.e. getting to know each other. Your role is to introduce team members and roles, and describe the focus of the team with clarity.
- Storming – members start to push against boundaries, leading to conflict and emotional responses. Your role is to mediate, using your authority as leader when required, helping them to recognise each other’s different work styles etc.
- Norming – the group overcomes previous resistance and finds a new cohesion. Now you can focus on monitoring progress and providing constructive feedback and praise where appropriate.
- Performing – roles become more flexible and functional, and energy is given to the task. This is the stage where you can take a step back, delegate more and focus your attention on developing the team.
Later, Tuckman added a fifth stage: adjourning – where the team is reorganised to work on other projects, or disbanded. This can be a period of uncertainty for everyone involved, perhaps even bringing a sense of loss if the team have performed well.
Understanding the different stages your team might be going through can help you to respond appropriately. For example, recognising that the storming stage is normal – but that with the right mediation it will end – can help you to deal with any personal feelings of frustration or negativity.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a significant shift in working styles, with many teams now working in a hybrid fashion, some in the office and some remotely. You’ll explore the broader leadership challenges of hybrid working in more detail in Week 7, but the potential impact on team building can be significant.
Hoffman (2022) shares the following observations based on Tuckman’s model:
- The forming process takes longer for virtual teams so you’ll need to find creative ways to connect, e.g. through messaging apps or team celebrations. This is especially important with new hires who might easily feel left out.
- During the storming stage, a virtual environment might make some feel more enabled to lashout, while others will find it easier to withdraw. Leaders need to find the right balance.
- During norming – research shows that remote working leads to greater productivity when it comes to task completion, at the expense of spontaneous collaboration – you must look for opportunities to encourage that spontaneity.
- Maintaining the performing stage in a virtual team takes constant work. Team members can take things out of context or struggle with communication – so leaders must look out for signs.
- In a virtual environment it is easy for people to ‘disappear’ once a project is over – as the leader, public acknowledgement of contributions made and an invitation to continue communication can help to combat the loneliness that is felt by some home workers.
There are many sources of online advice about team dynamics and developing a team, but the fundamental elements can be distilled into:
- choosing the right people – ensuring a good mix of skills and knowledge that will complement each other and get the job done
- making sure that team members are clear about the task and are motivated to achieve it
- regular communication – monitoring progress, giving feedback and celebrating success.