Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing: A Better Model

In this post, I would like to expand on the topic of how excellent teams develop.

The most well known model for group or team development is probably the four stages of forming, storming, norming, and performing developed by Tuckman. Tuckman, in a later collaboration with Jensen expanded the four stage model into five stages with the addition of adjourning. Tuckman himself stated that the popularity of his model was probably based to a great degree on the rhyming terms he coined for the stages of development. As noted, while Tuckman’s model may be the most popular, it is definitely not the only one. A 1973 article by Hill and Gruner, relays an anecdotal account of someone who had collected over 100 distinct models or theories of group development. If there were over 100 in 1973, how many more must there be now!

One of the hundreds of available models that I believe adds a depth missing from Tuckman’s model is the TEAM model was developed by Morgan, Salas, and Glickman. In this model nine stages are identified (performing, forming, storming, norming, performing, reforming, performing II, conforming, and deforming). Several of these stages are the same as Tuckman’s but you may first notice the initial step is performing. This is an acknowledgement that for most teams, members have been performing prior to the formation of the new team. They may have associated with others in this new team; team members may be new to each other. In either case, team members come to the new team with life experiences that influence how they perceive teams, teamwork, and the role they anticipate playing in the new team.

The pre-existing assumptions about how a team is going to function can be a major hurdle in the effort to become high performing. Once I became the leader of a team whose other members had been together for some time. They were well entrenched in playing roles within the team that were not always emotionally healthy nor were they always productive. Further, team members had very strong feelings about the previous team leader and for the first few weeks of our working together, projected their beliefs about the motivations for his actions onto what I said and did. Finally, during one particularly dysfunctional meeting I said, “Stop. I am not Guy (not his real name). Stop projecting what you thought about him onto me.” Ultimately we were able to break through those preexisting expectations and become an excellent team. We began to look back at our early days together and laughingly referred to it as the former spouse syndrome – as the new team “spouse” I was getting blamed for everything the previous spouse had done and his motives were imputed to be mine.

A second feature assumed in the TEAM model is that a group could start at and proceed through any of the stages; revert back and revisit previous stages; basically break from the linear progression implied in Tuckman’s model. This non linear, often cyclical flow of performance depends on the previous experience of the group members with the task and with each other, on changes that arise within the group, and on environmental factors.

I have seen and worked with teams that moved quickly to the performing stage and stayed there, functioning at an acceptable to high level. I have also seen teams that seem to always be in a state of flux: team members are changing; expectations for output or team purpose are changing; relationships among team members are changing. In fact for some teams, flux may be a generous assessment and chaos may be closer to the truth. What causes this pattern to be broken and for the team to become at least better functioning if not high performing? Sometimes that change never happens and team members either give up and move on to other things, or the sponsoring organization shuts the team down. When a positive change does occur, the change can be prompted by a change in group membership (and thus dynamics), an external threat that causes the team to jell to meet that threat, or a clear unifying goal that becomes essentially a new team charter around which everyone can rally.

Another aspect to the TEAM model is the recognition there are two separate paths for team development. The first is the one in which the group learns what it must accomplish and what it needs to meet that outcome. The second path is concerned with the interpersonal and communication skills of the group. Ideally, both paths proceed in sync with each other leading to the highest level of performance and group satisfaction. As I have described in previous blogs, my research and experience clearly shows that high performing teams excel at both producing the expected outcomes of the group and in building supportive, helpful, caring relationships among team members. Excellence does not occur without both aspects.

Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing is a nice simple model that roles easily off the tongue. However, I believe the TEAM model is a better reflection of how teams actually develop and perform.

A Thousand Hacking At Branches for One Striking At Roots

One of my favorite sayings is by Henry David Thoreau: “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of [a problem] to one that is striking at its roots.”*

What does this have to do with organizational excellence? Quite a lot, I think. Far too often companies launch into campaigns that are aimed at the symptoms (lower accounts receivable; improve employee morale; reduce calls to the help line) rather than identifying the root causes for those problematic symptoms and correcting them. So, what is the result of these efforts? There may be a short term improvement as attention is paid, but soon organizational will and attention wane and the problem returns. When it gets bad enough, another campaign will be launched. Often these campaigns take the form of trying to implement the management fad of the moment.

Taiichi Ohno, considered to be the father of the Toyota Production System, which became Lean Manufacturing, famously taught that organizations ask “The Five Whys” to identify the root problem(s) [there are usually more than one], before taking action. Simplistically, Five Whys is a methodology in which one keeps asking why until a fundamental, actionable cause is identified. Once that cause is identified and solved, the symptom will disappear. While this methodology implies by its name that root causes can be identified by five whys, it may take fewer or greater to accurately discover the root cause.

An Ishikawa or Fishbone Diagram is a tool often used to trace problems back to their root causes. At the top of the page is an example of such a diagram. The headings of equipment, process, people, materials, environment, and management are typical but can be adjusted to fit any particular organization. On the other hand, these categories are also broad enough that they would, in fact, be applicable to one degree and in one form or another for most organizations.

At the head is the problem. The headings are the major areas for investigation. The larger “fishbones” represent the major groupings of problems. The smaller groupings are subsets or more detailed items under the larger categories. It is not my purpose here to provide exhaustive instruction about how Ishikawa diagrams are used; it is sufficient to reiterate that the tool is used to trace problems back to their root causes, often using the Five Why methodology.

Once the root causes are identified (again, there are usually more than one) they can be listed and examined for relative importance (how much impact they have on the undesired outcome); ease of mitigation (how hard it would be to solve this root cause); and cost of mitigation (actual and psychic/emotional/cultural costs). From this a priority list can be established and an action plan created.

Ohno is quoted as saying, "The root cause of any problem is the key to a lasting solution.” As leaders of organizations take time to identify the true root causes and solve them, they will become one of the one in a thousand striking at the root rather than hacking at the branches. They will make lasting changes and help move their organizations towards excellence

*In the original quote, Thoreau wrote “evil” instead of my replacement of “a problem”. Although I believe both statements are true, my replacement moves it from the specific to the general.

Employee Engagement

As I visit with leaders, senior managers, and executives of organizations of all sizes, a common complaint I hear is about employee engagement. Examples include: “I don’t know where to find good employees anymore. People just don’t seem to care.”; “Young employees don’t care about work anymore. All they want to do is go have fun.”; and, “Employees seem to think they are entitled to a job. They do the bare minimum to keep from getting fired but very few care enough about the company to really work for its success.” You get the idea. Very few of these organizational executives look at these concerns as symptoms of their own lack of leadership.

Today, I would like to address this topic head on by discussing employee engagement and how to increase it in your organization.

Peter Block in his book Flawless Consulting, describes engagement as the art of brining people together. I like to expand this thought to include bringing people and their talents, passions, experience, and skills together to work towards a common goal. Block states that in the end engagement is more powerful than articulating a clear vision, establishing performance standards, developing a rewards system, increasing training, or instituting formal measurement processes. It is not that those are not important features of excellent organizations, they are, but he believes we have over emphasized them at the cost of underemphasizing the power of engagement through dialog.

Traditionally, the steps of organizational change include: establishing a vision, setting standards for what is expected, building a reward system to reinforce the behavior, provide training if new skills are required, and then measuring the change. The problem with these necessary but insufficient steps is they assume the people in our organizations are placid objects that we can manage and manipulate. Do you resent feeling like you are being manipulated into doing something you don’t want to do? I certainly do. Even if it is something I want to do, if I believe my behavior is being manipulated, rather than asking me to give it freely, I have feelings of resentment and a desire to resist.

Like Block, I believe this also manifests itself in our organizations. We need to create opportunities for dialog with organizational members. These are not just forums for management to expound on their vision of strategic plans but a true dialog where organizational member of all stripes can explain why the organization is important to them, where they think the organization should go and what it should be doing, and how their personal values tie to the services and products the organization creates.

Establishing an opportunity for all organizational employees to dialog about the organization, its values, goals, outputs, and how that relates to the individuals values, and interests may seem like too great an investment, perhaps even a waste of time. There is thought among some in management that all that needs to be done is set a clear enough goal and people will work for it; and if they don’t they should be shed from the organization as quickly as possible.

However, I believe this approach neglects the energy, enthusiasm, and performance that can be realized from fully engaged people. Each of us is more than a “pair of hands” or a limited set of skills to be applied as management sees fit to solve a problem. When we care about the reason the organization exists; when the overlap between our values and the organization’s are clear; when our goals and objectives align with and support those of the organization, engagement occurs and we will do all we can to help the organization, and thus ourselves, succeed.

For a short time we can force engagement through fear, intimidation, or manipulation. In the long run it will only persist if freely given. I believe it will only be freely given if mutual understanding is developed. This does not have to be terribly time consuming but it does take effort. Even very large organizations have made an excellent beginning in a matter of a couple of days through whole system change activities and then ongoing dialogs that continue to invite organizational members to contribute and which actively listen to and respond to what is said. I personally have led organizations of several hundred members through such a process and have witnessed success in lower turnover, greater stated satisfaction in employee surveys, and high performance in terms of output and profitability.

If our organization members are not as committed as we would like; if they don’t work as hard as we want; if they don’t seem to really have the best interests of the organization at heart, whose fault is it? If as organizational leaders we hold even some of the blame, should we not quit making self justifying excuses and condemnations and take action? Employee engagement is possible. All we have to do is open ourselves and our organizations to the possibility.