31. Leadership: Team Formation Stages

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Kenny Chapman here, your host of leadership in a NutShell, this episode 31. Super pumped to be with you here today. I want to talk about team formation stages. This is a concept that was taught to me back in the early 2000s by a consultant friend of mine that did high level consulting with the apples and the IBMs of the world and the MGM grand and just massive, massive companies. And he taught me so much over the course of our, of our time together and he brought this concept to me that I, that many of you may have already heard. But it's always good to kind of go back and remember because we're constantly evolving as leaders, as companies, as teams. I believe that you're running two businesses right now. Today you're running your current business. You're also running your future business. And that means that you're running your current team and you're running your future team. Even if you don't change any team members at all. Your future team had better look different than your current team does because the world is changing, technology is changing, you are changing, your customer base is changing, the market is changing. And therefore we've got to look at team stages as we go. Now the concept I'm going to talk about with you here today was brought, written about by, I should say by a psychologist or psychiatrist by the name of Bruce tuckman. And in 1965 he, he authored an article called the the Developmental Sequence in Small Groups. And we're talking about four things here today and they are forming, storming, norming and performing. And so don't make me say it too fast and you might want to.

Talk along with me here. Forming, storming, norming and performing. Let's think about what this looks like. So if we start at the forming.

Stage and this could be, you know.

Maybe you've got a brand new team, maybe you're reinvigorating a team, maybe you're doing something new.

I was just brought in for one.

Of my purpose guided leadership live advisory.

Programs into a, a business that already.

Has a current leadership team, but I'm doing coaching with them quarterly, on site and really going through and facilitating what this team is going to grow into over the course of our time together. So we start off in the forming stage and in this stage generally, you know, people are pretty positive, they're pretty polite, some, some have a little bit of anxiety, not really exactly sure what's going on and kind of trying to find their way because we all as human beings, we operate differently, we, we look at things differently.

So Kind of a little bit of not necessarily uneasiness, but just uncertainty. Really not exactly sure what, what's going to happen or what's going to be, you know, taking place here. Some people are just super excited. They're ready to rock and roll no matter what. Like, let's go, let's do it. Let's rock and roll it. Here's what's important. You as a leader, play a very, very critical role in this phase. As you begin to form your team or form the new part of your team, form the new kind of mindset, belief, behavior, process that your team is going to take on, you need to make super clear that roles, responsibilities, communication, very important as we form this stage can last for a little while as people are kind of getting used to things and understanding how things are going to work moving forward. So that's forming. Then we move to the storming phase. Now when we get here, you're starting to have teams start pushing boundaries and, you know, we establish boundaries in the forming stage. Now we're going to kind of challenge those. Here's the reality. This is when a lot of people don't make it. This is where a lot of teams end up kind of really having a big challenge because people work in very different ways for different reasons, and sometimes different styles create challenge. When we go back to taking things personal, when we go back to wanting to be right rather than winning during the storming phase, this is when it shows up, is when it shows its head. Hey, we're out here to get things done. We're out here to rock and roll. We want to make it happen. We're, you know, oh, my gosh, you know, we might step on toes, we might have different things. This is where it shows up. If us as leaders haven't been super clear about who's responsible for what, what are the different roles, what are the responsibilities that we created in the forming stage? What or perhaps weren't super clear about. And now all of a sudden, we've got driven team that are quote unquote going out of their way, getting out of their lane to doing things that weren't part of their original understanding. Because we're storming, baby. This is what it's all about. So be mindful of these things and be very, very cautious of what takes place here and check in on these because, you know, sometimes you can have a lot of stress during this stage, and people handle and deal and. And communicate stress very differently. So we've got forming, then we've got storming, then we go to norming. So now in the norming stage is.

Where we kind of start hitting that exactly what it is. We start to find a new normal, if you will. People start resolving their differences. We start understanding how we communicate better with each other. We really start to kind of know each other individually. We might start socializing together. We might go grab a beer or a drink after work. We might go to the movies on the weekend. We might get our kids together for a play date, whatever that looks like. We start developing more interpersonal communications as well as team communications and seeing things for the greater good of the greater goal and us as individuals. This is where some constructive feedback might come in. You know, one of my previous episodes, if you haven't listened to it, go back and listen to the episode I recorded about, you know, quote, unquote, constructive criticism. This isn't about criticism here.

No such thing as constructive criticism. You're either trying to help me or you're not. So let's not, you know, dance around it, but let's make sure that we're clearly helping people. That's what's happening in the norming stage. Then we go from there, and there's kind of a, you know, there can be an overlap because from the storming to the norming part, because we're still going out, we're getting things done, and we're finding a new normal within that, within the team. Now, also, don't make any mistake. If you're a smaller business, you only have a team of, you know, four or five people. That could be your entire team. You might have a team of four or five hundred people. And we're talking about forming, storming, norming, and performing at the leadership level. No more than six people run any company, regardless of size. And so when I say that, I want you to realize this happens at every level within the organization. So don't check out on me and go, well, I'm a small business. I'm just starting to grow. Kenny, I. That's fine. You have all of this taking place. Every size of the company forming, storming, norming. Now we move to performing. This is where we start to reach. You know, we're. We're working hard, we got leads going. We've got less friction in the business. We're all rocking and rolling, performing goals. We're. We're hitting goals, I should say. We're performing at the highest level. You know, the. The kind of roles and responsibilities, the processes that we set up, the systems that we set up or are rocking and Rolling. Everything's kind of, you know, having the best result that we intended and we saw possible. This is where as leaders we're able to delegate a lot because the team is performing at a super high level. So we, you know, we really want to be, to be mindful of this stage as well because you know, now this, it's easy to be a part of a rockstar team now because you know, we're, we're getting it done. And this is where some people can join the team and other people can leave the team without disrupting the performance result because we've built the core of it, if you will. That's why I say no more than six people run any company regardless of size. So certainly if one of those key six might leave in a hundred million dollar company, that might have some effect. But it's not going to stop everything but because we've got a team that performs at the highest level. So let's think back through these and I'll get you out of here at a decent time. I want to stick to 10, 12 minutes with you but forming. So this is where you know as, as a leader and the activities that you're going to see, you really need to direct the team. You've got to make sure that you're establishing objectives and making sure that you're clear about what you want to see happen. You know, both as an overall team as well as the individuals on that team. Clarity is critical. It's why it's the first dimension in my new book the Six Dimensions of Change 2.0. Clarity is key when you're forming teams or reforming. If you already have a team, clarity is super important for the team and individual team members. Then when we think about the storming phase, this is where as a leader you're facilitating building of trust and good relationships. Some people are afraid of people having personal relationships. I think it's important, important for people to be able to build trust. I don't care whether they hang out outside of work or not. What I care about is the ability to resolve, challenge, resolve conflict, resolve, lack of communication. Make sure that those things take place. As a leader during the storming phase, super important that you remain positive that you're able to really be, you know, a quote unquote cheerleader during this time because people are finding their legs, their, they're kind of seeing what's going on and make sure that you're sharing with them this process. Like, hey, this is what we're doing right here. We've got this intentionally we're forming right now so we can be storming and rocking here. In this stage that we're in now, we're going to move on to norming and really take a step back and understand everybody's standing on their own here, Everybody responsible for their own things, handling their own objectives, creating their own results. Now we hit that norming part and then ultimately we go to performing where you're able to delegate. The top leaders in your organization are able to delegate. Your frontline team is able to delegate more to technology, to each other in unique ability opportunities. Because at the end of the day, here's the reality, you will always be in some stage of these. You will always be forming new relationships. You'll always be storming certain projects, goals, new areas of the business that you want to grow and improve. You will always be creating new normals and norming certain things with new relationships, different relationships, new market, new technology, whatever that looks like. And you've always got to be focused on performing when you do these things. And you keep team members focused on, you know what their purpose is, making sure that people are in alignment with purpose. First and foremost. I'd like to talk about in purpose, on purpose and doing the very best that you can as an organization to keep people thriving in unique ability. From my mentor, Dan Sullivan, where we think about, what are you the very best at? Let's rock that. Let's keep that in that lane. Those things lead to ultimate fulfillment. When you have fulfillment now, you're onto something. You don't have turnover, you've got higher profitability. Everybody on the team can earn more, be happier, contribute more and ultimately be more successful. That's what everybody wants. And if you want to help me feel successful today, please do me a favor and give me a rating. Give me a review. I'd love to have a review. Let me know how we're doing, how we're hitting the mark here and share this with somebody also. Give me your thoughts. Kennyennychapman.com Shoot me an email. Let me know any topics you'd like to hear. Anything you want me to break down in these short clips. This is leadership in a nutshell. I'm Kenny Chapman, your host. This has been episode 31, team formation stages. I'll see you next week.

Thanks, everybody.