Team Dynamics
I was listening to a Podcast where Brene’ Brown talked about the stages of growth a team experiences, it brought me back to my Corporate days where I taught this very thing to highly educated professionals that had to truly learn and immerse themselves in Team Dynamics. It was the most interesting process because not only did we teach the content, but we had them go through experiential learning, and in that process they would get frustrated, disagree, and seek me out to share their opinions and group problems. I would encourage them to stick with the process, follow the methodology, be open, and to work on their listening skills, communication skills and trust that the process of facilitation works, as does group and team dynamics.
There are 4 stages of Team Development we taught consultants—in order to better understand how teams work and how to progress the team through the stages to high performing teams. This can apply to any type of team, and is an interesting perspective on how teams work, and ultimately perform.
1. Forming
2. Norming
3. Storming
4. Performing
Forming: A team coming together, understanding roles, looking at strengths & weaknesses and identifying roles.
Norming: These are the rules and guidelines on how the team will work together, this helps the team to follow a process that is inclusive, respectful, balanced and sets criteria with objectives and rules of engagement.
Storming: Ultimately there is always “storming” that happens on a team, and these are the challenges that erupt, be it a difference of opinion, power play, dominant personality/player and experiences that when managed effectively become lessons on how the team moves forward.
Performing: This is the objective for any high performing team, and ultimately where you as the facilitator or leader want to reside with your team. This is where the team is fully functional, collaborating, listening, encouraging, motivating supporting each player and member—the goal and objectives are clear, as are the rules of engagement—there is a shared spirit, a focus on the team and not one’s own objectives.
Note: Any time the team goes through a change and/or a new member joins, it goes through these stages again—typically it is not as arduous, but the team needs to experience orientation of new team members which ultimately learn the team norms, team culture and adapt to it’s synergy, power and positive norms and culture.
So, when you hear things like their is no “I” in team, that could not be any more true, team work is about the team, the larger goal, and the power of supporting and leveraging each member in a positive way. Also, “team work makes the dream work”, sounds fluffy but let's break it down. For any team or community or group, when people work together for the better good, when they insist on unity, support, kindness, empathy, compassion, motivation, mentoring, edification it creates amazing results, and not only does it result in a high performing team, it creates a synergy and energy that is positive, uplifting and powerful!
So the question we need to ask ourselves at the end of the day is this…
Are you a team player?
Team Player:
Encourages, Supports, Motivates, Positive, Compassionate, Passionate, Believes, Edifies, Leverages, Builds others up, takes responsibility, participates, advocates, champions.
Or are you a “Team Swayer”:
Negative, complains, talks about the leader, critical of teammates, judgmental, gossips, competitive (not in a healthy way), can’t attitude, comparing to others, excuses.
Depending on where you see yourself, Team Player or Team Swayer will determine your ability not only as a team player but as a leader. The dynamics and power of a team is incredible, and investing in the culture of the team, the leadership style, the norms and behaviors is everything when it comes to creating a high performing team and a positive team culture. People need guiding principles, team norms, positive leadership training and examples to set the standard of how they work together and how they create “group think” which ultimately will create the culture of an organization or team.
XO