At the same time, they may also feel some anxiety, wondering how they will fit in to the team and if their performance will measure up. It is not uncommon to hear of companies achieving impressive results through pilot programs at one factory site only to find themselves unable to replicate these local wins across their network. The performing stage is one that is not gotten with ease, but it can be one of the most rewarding stages to reach. Most high-performing teams go through five stages of team development. In addition to establishing your team’s mission or goal, it’s also important to set roles for individual team members. As you add people to the team, pay attention to what qualities and skills you’ll need to complete the project.
Leading manufacturers are now realizing significant value from data and analytics, AI, and machine learning (ML). However, a large majority remain stuck in pilot purgatory, struggling to capture the full potential of their transformation efforts or deliver a satisfactory return on investment. Each team will spend most of its time in the “performing” stage, regardless of how long a project is.
Do the five stages of team building always occur in the same order?
As a team leader, it’s your goal to support and empower your team to help get their highest-impact work done. When your team members feel comfortable with each four stages of team formation other, it’s easier to collaborate and work together. Alternatively, if your team is having challenges meshing, it may take them longer to get work done.
- As a result, you’ll establish yourself as a leader of a team rooted in transparency and trust while you communicate clear expectations and team principles.
- Teammates move beyond the introductory forming stage and start putting plans into action.
- You want to develop a keen sense of belonging in every member.
- Recently, several teams in our engineering department undertook a massive, ludicrously complex, business-critical infrastructure project.
- Setting a goal, even before you start working together, establishes some ground rules to focus on and ensures that everyone is on the same page and moving towards the same goal.
When your team has grown through the stages of team development they establish a state of “flow”. This means they understand how to work together in a cohesive way that helps them reach their goals. It’s the time where your team learns about upcoming projects and structures. Here, it’s typical for teammates to feel excited, anxious, and curious about what lies ahead. These companies are investigating how to begin their digital-transformation journeys. They need help to identify the full value that Industry 4.0 can bring to their business and to develop a network-wide strategy and deployment road map.
The agile guide to winning at team development
A good leader is someone who knows how to build these relationships genuinely and reap the results of productivity as a secondary reward. As a leader, it’s important to remember that you do not need to solve every conflict as it arises. It’s important for the team as a whole that they learn to deal with some of their issues. Of course, no good leader will let the conflict go on too long, and this is the challenge that the team leader must face – to intervene or to abdicate.
By understanding the five stages of group development, you can support your team as they’re getting to know one another to quickly enable collaboration and effective teamwork. The team achieves a great deal during the performing stage. During this, the team’s commitment to its goal and its members’ skill levels are pretty strong.
High-Performing Teams
They need to recalibrate by focusing on how to capture the full benefits of Industry 4.0 or how to accelerate rollout to respond to shifts in business and customer needs. These companies have started experimenting through pilot programs with some successes. However, they find themselves deploying technologies without a clear understanding of how to achieve financial ROI. Implemented successfully, these solutions deliver irresistible returns.
If the team is successful in setting more flexible and inclusive norms and expectations, members should experience an increased sense of comfort in expressing their “real” ideas and feelings. Team members feel an increasing acceptance of others on the team, recognizing that the variety of opinions and experiences makes the team stronger and its product richer. Members start to feel part of a team and can take pleasure from the increased group cohesion. Team Tasks during the Storming stage of development call for the team to refocus on its goals, perhaps breaking larger goals down into smaller, achievable steps.
Team Development Stages and Leader’s Role in Them
However, members of a productive team aim to address their disagreements constructively. There are loads of ways to grow a company – learn about our approach here. They’ll look to you for guidance and support, and when you establish a trusting two-way conversation, you’ll pave the way towards their professional growth. When this happens, it’s important to take stock of what your team needs. You recognize this isn’t any one team member’s fault, but you want to make it right.
We all perceive things in our own unique way based on past experience and what we know now. The key to moving through this stage is to make things as simple as possible. Hopefully, your team’s purpose or desired outcome is understood by this point. Now it’s time to make sure everyone understands the incremental milestones on the way to your goal, and what their role is in helping the team get there. Clarity as to what success looks like at each milestone will give your team a much-needed confidence boost.
Critical features of AI implementation in business
We discuss more about how to get your team to this point below. The first stage, forming, occurs when the team members first meet. During the formation stage, team members discuss team goals, individual roles, strategies, and group norms. A new team’s members are unsure about the team’s goals, where they fit in, and whether or not they will get along.
Teams may also disagree on the common goal and subgroups or cliques may form. Many teams often fail at this stage so it is important to reduce and address this conflict so that problems do not occur later on. “Resolved disagreements and personality clashes result in greater intimacy, and a spirit of co-operation emerges.”[4] This happens when the team is aware of competition and they share a common goal.
Leadership strategies to facilitate successful team development
It’s also important to hold regular status checks, to assess progress, determine where people are stuck, provide help, and give regular effective feedback. For the leader, it’s equally important to ask for feedback and demonstrate openness to receiving it, acknowledging its value, and acting on it. Within a high-performing team, there is an appreciation of the need for a balance of communication styles, and of balancing the intuitive and logical mind. The logical mind helps people solve problems and stay on task. The intuitive mind allows individuals to identify what they’re feeling. Often the logical mind works within defined biases or other constraints.
