Why Teambuilding 101 and what does it mean to your organization?
Team building is at the center of the majority of all organizations in North America. Many job advertisements in local and national papers start with ‘Join Our Team’.
Team building is an effective way to master organizational management.
Team building is proven to be successful and organizations who have adopted this approach achieve increased performance overall.
There are different types of team building processes any business can implement. This post explains one popular model created by Bruce Tuckman. Teams go through stages in their development. The Tuckman model is a good example.
Tuckman Group Development Model
Their motto is “Forming – Storming – Norming – Performing“. Leaders assess where a team is in its formation, and identify what to do in order to guide the team to be more cohesive and achieve greater performance.
- Forming
When team building with a new team, the participants goe through a forming stage. Morale is usually high because people are getting to know each other. Performance is low because the team has yet to function together. A forming team is one of excitement, unrealistic expectations, and worry. For a forming team to move forward, the leader needs to take control. They should work on getting the team off to a solid start. Leaders should work on developing a strong team character.
- Storming
Storming is the master of organizational management. Storming is a natural process in team development. The process occurs when expectation and reality collide. This is an initial period of confusion and frustration, which turns slowly into greater performance, because team members start to appreciate the task at hand. The team leader is there to smooth out difficulties of control and conflict. This can be done by the team leader asking questions rather than dictating how things should be.
- Norming
This is a stage where team members have a greater understanding of their purpose. At this point the team has shared values and norms. Morale is usually high at this point and the team is more susceptible to sharing leadership and control. This has the desired result of cohesion and improved performance. The team leader at this point will take on a more supportive role, and encourage development, problem solving and decision making.
- Performing
This stage exudes a sense of pride or excitement. Its primary focus is on the task at hand and performance. Team members develop trust and respect for one another and tend to enjoy working as a team. This is another level of mastering organizational management as both performance and standards are usually high, coupled with a sense of wanting to exceed expectations.
By this stage, the team leader’s goal is to maintain performance through presenting new challenges. This is achieved by taking on a delegating role. The leader allows the team to become more autonomous yet supports the team by celebrating its successes. The team leader also helps the team towards closure when the task is completed.
Someone with a masters in organizational development would be able to effectively lead and train a team going through these phases. The team leader needs to be adaptable, adjusting their style to promote better performance. Team leaders need to access the impact they have on the team.
Studies have shown that eighty percent of performance
is due to the climate in the workplace and thirty percent
of that climate comes from the team leaders.
This means in practice that twenty-five percent of performance results can be directly attributed to the leadership ability of team leaders. It is essential for them to understand simple models and tools for effective team development. This understanding will improve their team’s performance. Strong team leader skills will help your team function better and deliver better value to your organization.
Dana Davis
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I have heard a lot of great things about team building for businesses. It\’s pretty cool that team building can increase performance in these big corporations. This \”forming-storming-norming-performing\” model sounds like it would be really effective.