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About this lesson
Teams go through stages as they become acquainted with each other and establish trust. These stages lead to improved team performance.
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Quick reference
Team Building
Teams go through stages as they become acquainted with each other and establish trust. These stages lead to improved team performance.
When to use
Teams should proactively plan to go through the team building stages whenever a team is formed, or whenever the team membership changes. A team that has been in place for several projects or activities can very quickly work through the stages.
Instructions
Trust is a key enabler of high performing teams. Team building approaches can help to build trust. The presence of trust – where people, ask and give help, admit mistakes and apologize for them, take risk, accept inputs from others and give others the benefit of the doubt – will lead to a far better level of team performance than when there is an absence of trust and the opposite conditions exist. There are two methodologies often used to steer a team through the stages of team building and the creation of trust.
Team Building Stages
- Forming – getting to know each other and building a positive working environment.
- Storming – addressing power and control issues among team members.
- Norming – establishing a set of team practices and gaining agreement on how to resolve the conflicts
- Performing – with the establishment of norms, the team is now able to routinely solve problems and achieve the team goals.
GROW
- Goals – clarify team and personal goals to establish alignment.
- Reality – face the reality of team strengths and weaknesses, providing feedback on both positive and negative attributes.
- Options – consider options to achieve the goal; don’t stay stuck in the past.
- Way forward – select a viable option, plan and execute the plan.
- 00:04 Hello, I'm Ray Sheen.
- 00:06 When teams are formed, their performance can often be enhanced by understanding and
- 00:11 working through the stages of team building.
- 00:14 We'll start by describing the team building lifecycle.
- 00:19 The first stage is forming.
- 00:21 This stage represents the initial formation of the team, and
- 00:24 the goal is usually just to get to know each other.
- 00:27 The team leader tries to establish a friendly and positive working environment.
- 00:31 The focus of this stage is to understand the goals of the team and
- 00:34 how everyone's skills can contribute to the team's success.
- 00:37 The initial challenge the team leader faces is to get everyone committed
- 00:41 to the team and its goals.
- 00:43 The next stage is storming.
- 00:45 In this stage, conflict often arises.
- 00:48 As the team members begin to work together,
- 00:50 they need to establish boundaries and expectations.
- 00:53 Inevitably there will be some clashes of power and control.
- 00:56 Who has what authority?
- 00:58 When are decision unilateral, and when must they be coordinated or
- 01:01 approved by other team members?
- 01:04 A major challenge a team leader faces is to get team members to truly listen and
- 01:08 understand the concerns of other team members.
- 01:11 The third stage is norming.
- 01:13 The team begins to manage the conflict from the previous stage and
- 01:16 establishes the team practices or norms for how these are sorted out.
- 01:22 The team works to find consensus for the tough issues and points of conflict.
- 01:26 The challenge for
- 01:27 the team leader is to face the conflict and find a win-win solution.
- 01:31 Interestingly, I've seen some teams that act as though conflict is bad and
- 01:35 they never allow conflict to be acknowledged and resolved.
- 01:39 Unless a conflict is addressed and norms established, the team will lack trust and
- 01:43 performance will soon spiral down.
- 01:46 The final stage is performing.
- 01:48 By this time, the team has established their team practices and
- 01:51 everyone understands what to expect from one another.
- 01:54 They're now functioning effectively with trust and open communication.
- 01:58 The goals are understood and
- 02:00 everyone understands how they contribute to team success.
- 02:04 The team leader now is focused on making wise and
- 02:06 timely decisions whenever the team faces challenges.
- 02:10 Now every team goes through these stages whether they acknowledge it or not.
- 02:13 And when team members are changed,
- 02:15 the team may need to go back down the ladder and start over.
- 02:18 That's okay, it's expected.
- 02:20 Plan for it and
- 02:21 you can accelerate the team through the stages to get back to high performance.
- 02:26 When teams don't work through the stages of team building,
- 02:29 they will develop trust issues.
- 02:31 If you see a team with trust problems,
- 02:33 take them through the stages of team building.
- 02:36 What do I mean by trust problems?
- 02:38 Well, let's start with the actions of behaviors of a team that displays trust.
- 02:42 On this team, team members are willing to admit mistakes and ask for help.
- 02:46 They're comfortable working together, leveraging each other's skills and
- 02:50 abilities.
- 02:51 They're prepared to take risks as a team because of their trust in each other.
- 02:55 When things go wrong, they give each other the benefit of the doubt and are willing
- 02:59 to answer questions about their work and role without being resentful.
- 03:03 Their focus is on resolving team issues, not politics.
- 03:07 They offer and accept apologies without holding grudges.
- 03:10 And finally, they're active participants in team meetings and are ready and
- 03:14 prepared for the meeting.
- 03:17 Let's contrast that list with teams where trust is not present.
- 03:21 In this case, everyone is more concerned about protecting themselves and
- 03:25 not the performance of the team.
- 03:26 For instance, they hide their mistakes, and they are unwilling to either ask for
- 03:30 help or offer help to other team members.
- 03:33 They either provide no feedback or destructive feedback to team members.
- 03:36 They are quick to suspect other people's intentions and abilities.
- 03:41 They're often competing against the other team members, so
- 03:43 they will not recognize or leverage their abilities.
- 03:46 They're consumed by worrying about their image and
- 03:50 often do grandstanding for effect.
- 03:52 They hold grudges against other team members and avoid attending team meetings.
- 03:58 Let's look at one more construct for understanding team building and
- 04:00 improving team performance, GROW.
- 04:04 First is the setting of goals for the team, and
- 04:06 aligning the team members' personal goals with the team goals.
- 04:10 If the team is a permanent team or a team with a long project,
- 04:14 you need to consider both short term goals, like someone needing to complete
- 04:17 a set of tasks within the team in order to gain a certification, and
- 04:21 long term goals, such as having a stable work-life balance.
- 04:25 When the goals are understood, the team leader and team members face reality.
- 04:29 What are the strengths and weaknesses of their team?
- 04:33 Personally I find it helps a team more by
- 04:35 focusing on leveraging strengths rather than trying to correct weaknesses.
- 04:39 Feedback is a key here and we will talk more about that in a later session.
- 04:44 But it is worth noting that both positive and negative feedback should be used.
- 04:49 Next, the team grows and improves as it seeks out the best options for
- 04:52 achieving the goals and
- 04:53 periodically re-evaluates performance to find options for additional improvement.
- 04:58 Don't let the team get stuck in a rut.
- 05:01 Regularly seek better paths to achieve the goal.
- 05:04 Which then takes us to the fourth step.
- 05:06 Which is to implement the best options, or
- 05:09 another way of saying it, implementing the way forward.
- 05:12 Good intentions are not enough for the team to be successful.
- 05:15 They need to actually plan and implement the selected options.
- 05:19 Nothing builds a team like successful accomplishment of the team goals.
- 05:24 A key attribute for team success is to build a well-performing team.
- 05:31 This will sometimes happen by accident, but it's better to steer your team through
- 05:36 the stages of team building to accelerate your team's success.
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