Everybody knows the quote.
“The only constant in life is change.”
– Heraclitus
What does it mean though? Specifically, what does it mean for a team?
I often remember this quote when someone references Tuckman’s stages of group development. Most of the time the stages are seen as a journey. At the end of the journey, the team becomes Performing and corporate Nirvana is reached.
As a coach, one of my primary roles is to help teams improve, or help them become performing. These stages and a team’s ability to move from one to the next is a huge part of the value I can bring to a company. Of course, the idea of a team constantly moving along this path to arrive at Performing and live there the rest of a companies life is, in a word, fantasy.
The idea of reaching performing is not fantasy, the idea of reaching it and being set for the long haul is. The problem is that constant of change. Whenever a team undergoes change it is likely to slip back to a prior stage in the model.
The obvious sources of change are new team members, losing team members, and leadership changes. There are other, more subtle places it comes from though. For instance, one of the team members’ parents move into town, or a spouse loses a job. It doesn’t have to be big life events either. A child making a traveling sports team can really upset a summer schedule and affect work. In some cases, something as simple as a new snack machine vendor could have unforeseen consequences.
This isn’t a bash at Tuckman’s model. Truth is, it’s a very good one. Teams do go through stages, and when the project is temporary in nature a team can “finish” in a performing state. However, with today’s focus on product teams that go on for much longer than a development team may have in the past, there often isn’t a clear “end” in mind for a team when it is formed.
I like to approach the Tuckman model as more of a journey than a ladder. The team isn’t climbing its way to perfection, but rather on a journey of continuous improvement which is constantly adjusted. The destination guides the direction, but the focus needs to be on the journey and where the team is at. Every challenge the team hits doesn’t knock them back, it merely alters their path.
I’d love to help move your teams forward along their journey. Contact me now and let’s talk about your needs.
Everybody knows the quote.
