Tuckman Model strategies to achieve and sustain High Performing Teams

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If there ever was a model that highlights why companies have few high performing teams, it is the Tuckman Model.  This model describes the path that most teams take from forming, to storming, to norming, and then performing.  When companies strive to achieve high-performing teams, they often fail to realize that the moment you reorganize, this takes any team that has been changed, back to forming.  In fact, if a company reorganizes enough, their teams rarely achieves the benefits of performing. 

What are some strategies in keeping teams in “performing”?  At a high level, it is to minimize reorganizations.  While some reorgs may be reasonable as part of an overall corporate strategy, others tend to be frivolous.  Realize that a reorg will take a performing team back to forming that means a significantly negative impact to velocity and productivity, leading to reduced delivery. If you have to reorganize occasionally, attempt to minimize the impact to high performing teams.   

At a more detailed level, what strategies aligned with each of the stage of the Tuckman Model can help you get to performing effectively or more quickly.  Let’s walk through the strategies at each stage. 

Forming

Forming is when the group of people are first introduced to each other. The cohort tends to be polite as they are trying to get to know each other.  Some people will be excited while others will be anxious (and sometimes both).  Forming may take time, as this is when people are getting to know each other and the work. People are trying to get to know each other and what they are there to do.

Strategies for moving through “forming” effectively and more quickly:

- Introduce a series of icebreakers.  Icebreakers provide a way for teams to get to know each other and start building psychological safety amongst each other.  When applied periodically, it can help groups more quickly get to know each other.  Consider the Constellation icebreaker as a start.

- Initiate team chartering.  In order to move from being a group of random individuals to a team of motivated people, it’s important to know what to strive for.  Team chartering is an explicit practice that helps the team understand their consequential purpose, the direction in which the team is moving, and objective of the work ahead.

Storming

Storming is when the group of people starts to play against each other and vie for position. Egos often are involved as each person is attempting to establish themselves with group. Some will want to be perceived as leaders, others may want to take a back seat.  Conflict will arise between people’s natural working styles.  This is also the time that niceness starts to wear off and where people start challenging each other. 

Strategies for moving through “storming” effectively and more quickly:

- Continue the path to psychological safety. Start establishing safety norms in meetings that encourage an equitable balance of speaking up and letting others speak.  Normalize conflict by discussing how you want to act when conflict occurs. Hold icebreakers that focus on sharing vulnerabilities.

- Conduct sessions that identify working styles such as Myers Briggs, Jung, DISC, Color, and more.  Each member of the team should take the test and examine how they themselves operate. Then share their results with other team members and understand how to best operate amongst each other.  

- Groom the work together.  This builds a common understanding of the work in a collaborative manner and keeps the team hyper-focused on the work ahead.

Norming

Norming is where team practices become clear and everyone is attempting to follow them.  Team roles are clear and accepted amongst the team. Team members have resolved their differences, begin to self organize around the work, respect how each other operates, and understand where to collaborate to get the work done. Team members begin to socialize, really get to know each other, and begin asking each other for feedback.

Strategies for moving through “norming” effectively and more quickly:

- Begin formal feedback loops amongst team members.  Get educated in how to give and receive feedback. Team members practice giving and receiving feedback.

- Apply regular retrospectives so the team can identify areas of improvement.  This is a whole team activity where everyone should be participating.  Reflection of the work should lead to improvement actions that are added to the team backlog of work and collaboratively completed. 

- Establish team measures on how the team inspects, adapts, and improves.  This may include team velocity, employee satisfaction, and delivery metrics. The team may experiment with increments of improvement to ensure they are moving in the right direction. 

Performing

Performing is when the team has a shared vision of their work, knows exactly what they are doing, and works independently with little assistance from their managers.  The team continually achieves its goals and seeks to go beyond their goals. Team members attend to their relationships and look after each other. Differences are resolved in a positive manner.

Strategies for achieving and sustain “performing” effectively:

- Initiate Peer hiring where team members own and interview new team members.  Team members determine fit and complementary skills such as problem-solving, technical, and interpersonal skills.

- Team members agree to and apply intrinsic motivators to encourage high performance.  This may include autonomy, mastery, and purpose, from Dan Pink’s list of motivational elements. When team members are paid fairly, these three elements and drive people to do their best work.

It is important to know that when a team moves through the Tuckman model, they may find themselves in several of the stages at the same time.  For example, while a team may be “norming” on team practices, they may still be “storming” on how to work together.  Understanding this model can help you appreciate where your team is today and what you can do to more effectively get to the next stage, ultimately learning to high performing.  More importantly, it can help an organization be more careful on their frequency of reorganizations as this can bring many of their teams from performing back to forming.  

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Woven Together - A Practice to Build Authentic Connection and Psychological Safety

By Jody Gold with Mario Moreira

The game is changing. Hierarchies are flattening out. Companies are re-organizing to profit from the agility and collective intelligence of smart, flexible teams.  The concept of “leadership” itself is changing—from individual leadership that devises strategy and drives troops into battle, to relational leadership that catalyzes the creativity and commitment of all team members.

The good news is that there are constructive frameworks from the isolation, frustration, and disengagement that reduce collective learning and performance, to fully engaged, highly coordinated, innovative and agile teams that increase learning and performance. Matrix Leadership is one such framework that helps you successfully navigate this transformation.

Woven Together is an early practice and part of Matrix Leadership that helps strengthen the fabric of your team. Icebreakers and team-building exercises are often fun but their value fades.  Woven Together builds authentic connection, curiosity, and care among team members that last. People who’ve worked on teams together for years often rarely know about each other as people.  They may not know that John has a baby girl, and fills up with love when he talks about her getting her first tooth, or that Jennifer gets lit up by the smells, sounds, and tastes of street food when she is in another country. 

Woven Together raises energy in the room and can be used as a stand-alone activity.  It’s also a tangible introduction to core concepts like seeing relationships as first class entities that Mario Moreira describes in his article (part 1 of this series) and the entire network of relationships within a team as the relationship infrastructure that Jody Gold describes in part 2 of the series.  You can practice Woven Together with your team, right now.

Set-up

The ingredients include your team, a ball of yarn, 20-30 minutes depending on the size of your team, and enough space to stand in a comfortable circle.

Determine if each person in the circle will say just their name or their name, role, years in role, years at company, years doing agile.  This will depend on how well the facilitator and team members know each other.

You are person A.  You will explain the activity and model the two most important components: 1) forming a connection with one person—person B - and speaking to that person only, instead of scanning from person to person as we’ve all learned to do, and 2) telling person B 'something that light you up' in a way that is genuine and concise.

Steps 

1. Person A wraps the end of yarn around a forefinger and loosens enough yard equal to the distance between person A and B.  Person A throws the ball of yarn to B.  A speaks directly and only to B.
2. Person A says their Name.  Person B says their Name. 
3. Person A shares, “Something that lights me up is…”
4. B responds in a few words to complete the connection, “Cool. Thanks for telling me that. I want to know more about that. Etc.”
5. Person B chooses person C.  Repeat steps 1-5 (figure 1)
6. C chooses D and repeats steps 1-5.  Iterate until all people steps 1-5 and the ball of yarn is back at A  (figure 2).
7. After the yarn is back at person A, ask people to share what the experience was like and how things feel different now than before the activity.  

Final Thoughts

If Woven Together is used to introduce other practices, you may invite observations about the structure itself and its capacities.  Participants will name many characteristics of distributed leadership before they’ve learned about them formally.

Woven Together almost runs itself.  It’s amazing how much authentic connection, trust, and psychological safety arise from sharing ‘What Lights You Up.’  As the one leading the activity, be prepared for someone to say that speaking to only one person feels rude, exclusive, or uncomfortable.  Of course it may—scanning from person to person is a deep cultural norm.  Others may describe a sense of ease staying in connection with one person, like talking one-on-one with a friend.

Woven Together is also a good way for everyone to hear everyone else’s name a couple of times, and to quickly know who’s in what role and for how long, and/or how long they’ve been on the team or in the company.  It’s a great activity for a new team, a team whose membership has changed, or a new cross-functional project.

You have everything you need right now to turn thirty minutes into gold.  If you would like more information, consider contacting Jody Gold to discuss Woven Together or to learn more about how to equip teams to think, decide, and act as effectively as they can together.  

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Read Part 1 & 2 of the Relationship series:
- (Part 1) Importance of treating Relationships as First Class Entities 
- (Part 2) Strengthening the Relationship Infrastructure to Build High-Performing Teams

Constellation Icebreaker - Getting to know you

How do you get a group of folks to quickly learn about each other’s common interests? Consider the Constellation icebreaker technique.  Constellation is used to identify to what degree people from a group agree or disagree with certain statements (which can be based on a belief, idea, or value). 

This icebreaker technique is an informal way to get people to share a bit about themselves at the beginning of a training session, workshop, or when a new team is forming.  It is a non-confrontation way of learning people's opinion on a topic or statement.  Within seconds of applying this technique, the participants will clearly tell you what they think of the statement. Its also a great way to connect people together since they will visually see who has their common interests and opinions. There are several types of constellation icebreaker techniques and here is how the Constellation Orbital Icebreaker game works:

The set up:  

• Identify a "center" of the room (or constellation).  This is the Sun.  The location of the Sun represents the highest degree of agreement with the statement.
• Optionally, use masking or blue paint tape to create dashed lines around the sun in 3 feet/1 meter increments away from the sun.   

The activity: 

• Ask everyone to stand on/around the Sun (aka., the center) - don't crowd too much
• Speak the statement, e.g., "I love the Red Sox" 
• Ask folks to place themselves either close to or away from the sun according to how much they agree or disagree with this statement (each person becomes the planet)
• Once everyone has placed themselves, ask some/many/all of the folks why they have placed themselves where they are

Its a great way to learn about people fairly quickly.  Have you tried the Constellation icebreaker before?  If so, what do you think?  Do you have another icebreaker that you have found of value to getting folks to learn about each other?