High performance teams seldom occur by accident; they require practice, conflict, respect and a whole basketful or characteristics that only come if people continue to work together. It is useful then, to know what are the steps by which a high-performance team comes together so you know what to anticipate and what skills to use at each stage.
According to Donald B. Egolf [1] there are four phases teams go through: forming, storming, norming and performing. I’m not going to do it justice here and encourage you to get the book, but it is striking to me how little energy is still spent on team formation after all the Emotional Intelligence became a thing in 1995 with Daniel Goleman’s book [2] by the same name.
What ceremonies do you, as a leader, put in place to get people to get to know each other and respect each other and start to work together toward a common goal? This is the forming stage. Thirty minutes introductory meeting is not sufficient. It is important to understand each person’s commitment to the goal, what they expect to gain, what makes them happy and high performing, how do they communicate. Project managers have a built in method to start the forming process – it’s the project kickoff preparation. The rest of us must slow down and be deliberate and constant at restating the purpose, getting to know team members, changing resources, and ensuring regular and open communication.
When conflict, inevitably, arises, what techniques do you have to put in place to take the team over the “storming” hump? Are retrospectives, reflection, feedback mechanisms, escalations, and more part of your processes and culture? I worked with a leader who avoided conflict like the plague. He permitted a project manager to not speak to me for four months after I was a bit blunt in a team meeting. He also was not able to bring the leadership team together for over two years, and did not realize his team was pulling apart, in part, because conflicts were not addressed. This is tricky but mandatory skill for leaders of people. There are books on this topic with hundreds of difficult conversations [3], and there is the textbook, if there ever was one, on Crucial Conversations [4] – get comfortable with conflict resolution. You want to avoid the
Norming and performing have their own needs and deliberate attention. For example, how does the team continue to grow after you’ve set the initial processes in place – how does the team self-govern and self-optimize? And if you are not the process-type of leader how do you ensure the process stays on track and improves. Short answer: hire my good friend Anne – she is amazing. When she’s busy a program manager or Six sigma black belt would help.
Then there are “The five disfunctions of a Team,” [5] the book by Patrick Lencioni that won me over with the first line of its introduction. “It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare.” And I might add, unlikely to be replaced or bested by AI.
If that’s the case, I recommend meeting with a coach to help understand what gaps in your team building and empowerment strategy.
References:
- [1] “Forming Storming Norming Performing: Successful Communication in Groups and Teams” by Donald B. Egolf https://amzn.to/3GJoFYe
- [2] “Emotional Intelligence, Why It Can Matter more than IQ” by Daniel Goleman – https://amzn.to/3GQjyp7
- [3] “101 Tough Conversations to have with Employees…” by Paul Falcone – https://amzn.to/44O9juK
- [4] “Crucial Conversations” by Ron McMillan and Joshep Grenny – https://amzn.to/4lOi3Hh
- [5] “The five disfunctions of a team” by Patric Lencioni – https://amzn.to/40wK1yD
