How teams work.

Look back as far as you like and it is clear that when teams were working well together big jobs got finished on schedule, within budget and with the applause of outsiders. No single person has ever achieved a significant job unassisted, and teams have constantly been formed to tackle projects.

Western researchers will generally say there is just one, deeply influential model of team building that's come to describe how groups form. It is based on a paper published iin 1965 by then-navy researcher Bruce Tuckman where he claimed teams have a four-stage life: he called these forming, storming, norming and performing.

Tuckman's conclusion seems to make sense, as researchers since have more or less all agreed that when a group forms its members will first want to find out about the others, will need to adjust to them, will likely have disagreements, and may after some time become efficient and effective.

Bruce Tuckman named the first stage in a team's life Forming.

At this beginning stage the group's members test the other members and the group rules, and find out as much as they can about the group. Everyone is depending either on each other or the older team members, although this is going to change eventually.

Tuckman said that groups then entered stage two, the Storming.

Perfect name for this time of fighting when team members resist being told what to do by the team.

Then Norming takes over, the third of Tuckman's phases.

Members begin to talk and say what they think, the team becomes a unified team, and goals and roles get adopted and (largely) agreed on.

When this stage is fully developed Tuckman's final stage appears. He called it Performing.

The team is now set up to function and take advantage of its natural capacity because the members understand each other and can work together. Team members put their efforts into getting work done, if it will help members swap jobs, the team leaders are accepted and the group supports each other and the team's objectives.

Tuckman took his analysis further. He added another and of course there were always going to be rival researchers who debated and refined Tuckman's results. But in spite of this, Tuckman's clear outline of the study of his day, and his brilliant terms for each stage, have stayed around and till now are the basis of what we know about how teams work.

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Len McGrane has written widely on corporate team building programs and teambuilding ideas. He recommends this team building web site for programs www.teamworx.cc

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