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Strategy Skills > Managing People

Building a team

> in practice

The aim of team building is to create an environment that brings out the best in individuals and enables the team to work effectively together.

Common phases of team development

Teams often go through a number of phases during their development. There are many ways to describe these phases, but perhaps the best known are:

• forming
• storming
• norming
• performing.

These terms were developed by Bruce Tuckman in 1965 to describe how the members of small groups tend to act as the team develops. Each phase is described below.

Forming

This phase occurs when a team first comes together, or when membership changes. Sometimes this phase is called the "honeymoon" period because everyone is extremely nice to each other. Team members are usually cautious and polite with each other, while exploring their new circumstances. A good way to expedite this phase is to have "icebreaker" activities that allow team members to understand each member's capabilities and motivations. (This could be done as part of an Away-day early in the project)

Storming

During this phase, team members begin challenging and disagreeing with one another. They often jockey for position and use their expertise as weapons. Teams can get stuck in this phase and then fail. They key to moving quickly through this phase is explicitly defining the roles and responsibilities of each team member.

Norming

In this phase, team members start offering ideas and suggestions, sometimes using humour to get their points across. They reveal their preferences for performing tasks. Standards of behaviour and team processes are defined. By defining team processes, one can move on to performing.

Performing

This phase is the ideal phase for a team. They work hard and play hard together, using humour to help ease tensions. Team members anticipate problems, changes in direction and each other's moves. The focus of the team is on accomplishing their goals and not on blaming each other.

While 'storming' is a common part of team development, it is not a desirable or productive time. Your team can help shorten the storming phase by clarifying the team's purpose, defining clear performance goals and milestones, establishing roles and responsibilities and creating processes for getting the work done. Too much 'storming' is an indicator that the team's purpose is unclear or ambiguous.

Characteristics of successful teams

The following characteristics will help build a successful, cohesive team:

• Mutual Accountability. The members of the team should share a sense of mutual accountability. Team members should hold themselves and each other answerable for meeting the team's goals. All members must know what they are responsible for both individually and as a team.
• Commitment to a common purpose and goals. A common, meaningful purpose sets the tone and aspirations of the team
• Agreement on working methods and expected contributions from individual team members
• A non-hierarchical way of working
• Emphasis on job satisfaction and a friendly atmosphere
• Critical friends outside the team to give objective insights
• Sufficient flexibility in working methods and approach to accommodate different working styles
• Good communication and openness, where questions, ideas and opposing views on issues are encouraged.

Team-building events

A team building event gives everyone the opportunity to engage with the vision for the project, to think about how they will work together and to understand that everyone has different abilities that they bring to the project. There are many different tools in organisational development used to help people understand their differences. These include Belbin's team roles, Honey and Mumford's learning styles and Myers Briggs. All instruments give an insight into how it takes all kinds of people to make up a team. Your choice of instrument will depend on personal preference and training (e.g. formal accreditation is required for using Myers Briggs).

It may be helpful to use specific team-building exercises at team away-days and other team building sessions. These can assist learning about team working and project management. They can include, for example, survival, building and manufacturing exercises. Such exercises can be purchased from firms such as Management Learning Resources and Verax.

Strengths

• Very important to the success of the team, particularly when team members have not worked together before or have not worked on project teams before.
• Useful to bring together team members working on differing work-streams, to help them see the big picture.
• Can be formal or informal, ranging from professional techniques such as Myers-Briggs to team social events.

Weaknesses

• Often conducted early on in the project life-cycle but can be neglected as the project progresses and team members are engrossed in detailed analytical work.
• Use of techniques such as Myers-Briggs and professionally developed team games can be expensive.

References

Management Learning Resources Ltd, PO Box 28, Carmarthen, Wales, SA31 IDT, phone 01267 281 661, email: sales@mlr.co.uk

www.verax.co.uk, phone: 01252 849300 email: info@verax.co.uk

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