Re: How to Navigate a Storming Team

If you are a parent of a young child or you have been a parent of a young child, wasn't it a comfort to know that there were stages that your child would go through on their way to becoming an independent adult? While living through these stages may not be a comfort, knowing that they exist and will be short-lived, is a comfort.

This is also true of teams. Whenever a group of two or more people come together to work on a common goal, they will travel through a series of stages as they accomplish their goal. Each stage has certain characteristics that define it, but there is no set period of time that each stage lasts. As with your child, the length of the adolescent stage will be different for each child depending on their personality, friends and upbringing. Oh, and don't forget their hormones!

So what are the four stages that teams travel and how do you know if your team is in a particular stage? The four stages are forming, storming, norming and performing. While each team may not follow this sequence of stages exactly, many of them do, as they work together.

Forming:

Members ask "Why am I here? Who else is here? What will we do? How do I fit? Who'll lead the group?
Superficial and polite exchange
Can be suspicion, fear and anxiety about the task ahead
Tendency to avoid others or to be loners
Very little real communication
Very leader dependent
Beginning to develop individual commitment to be on team
Beginning to understand the expectations
Beginning to develop trust
Verbal members tend to dominate
May be hidden agendas
Conflicts are suppressed
Much voting
Members cautiously explore boundaries of acceptable behavior

Storming:

Members may opt out
Sense of feeling frustrated
Members may attack personally
Leadership may be challenged
Cliques and alliances form
Unsolicited comments
Emotional reaction to task or misperceptions about task
Personal strengths and weaknesses begin to appear
Process issues discussed outside of meetings
Members "jockey for position"
Outsiders blamed for problems
Dominated by one or two team members
Over-structured with tight control
Impatient with lack of progress
Overly competitive and confrontative
Self -serving or look out for yourself
Frustration, anger and resistance to goals

Norming:

Leadership issue resolved
Structure issues resolved
Procedures established
Issues not people confronted
Cohesion among members begins
Sub-groups disappear
Ability to remain focused to task
Air of complacency may develop
Activities undertaken
Willingness to experiment
Quiet people now contributing
Friendly and social climate
High concern for the needs of team members
Unfocused, irrelevant, overly -friendly communications
Feelings of mutual trust, respect and harmony
Avoidance of conflict
Focus on harmony and conformity
Competitive relationships become cooperative
Quality and quantity of work slowly increase

Performing:

High involvement
Get things done by collaboration
Agreement on who they are, what they're doing and where they are going
Team has clarified relationships and performance expectations
Participation by all team members
Cooperative and productive climate
Open, direct, relevant and businesslike communication
Ability to prevent or work through team issues
Individual learning and growth take place
Outside help and resources welcome
Members energize each other
Members are supportive and close, both in and outside meetings
Sense of genuine enjoyment and informality
Sense of effortlessness
Decisions by consensus
Objectives clear and sound
Frequent review of process issues
Problems handled creatively

Understand that each stage is not linear. What I mean is that you may spend time in "forming" and never go through "storming" as you jump to a "norming" stage. While this is rare, it may happen, if your team members have worked together successfully in the past on a different goal.

So, how does a team get out of storming? Try these tips below:

Revisit mission/goal statement
Revisit team rules or norms
Review thinking style assessment and conflict modes
Use facts as much as possible
Learn problem solving skills
Give specific work assignments
Use brainstorming to diffuse emotions
Use formal process checks
Use a parking lot
Plan fun activity
Celebrate successes
Use resource people
Start the process of testing implementation of plan

Knowing that a team goes through stages can be a comfort, especially if you know what to do to move them from storming to performing. Try these tips and you may find yourself on a high performing team that is fun because of the camaraderie amongst your team members and the amount of work you accomplish.