Stages of Group Development Part 1

Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, Adjourning. These are the stages of a group’s life cycle. Not all groups hit every one of these and some move very quickly through some or get stuck and never move forward. As a leader it is useful to understand where you are with your team in the cycle. Over the next few newsletters, I guess I should start calling them blog posts, I will cover the stages. 

Forming:

This is the first step in setting up a new group. New people, unknown levels of trust, no one knows anyone else’s level of knowledge, communication styles differ. There are many opportunities for failure at this stage if the group members are not well chosen or if they come with their own conflicting agenda. This is the time when everyone must explore boundaries of group protocols and see who will lead.

The leadership situation can be the make or break. Every group is different and leadership is one of the differentiators between a team and a group, are they chosen ahead of time or does someone emerge? This will make a big difference in determining who is responsible for different tasks in an abstract way.

For many groups, personalities have not fully emerged and some members will still be very guarded. The forming stage is usually short with only a meeting or two.

Storming:

At this stage, facades are dropped and power dynamics begin to emerge. This is the phase when contending points of view or vision for the group can lead to arguments. Often these are related to an unclear vision of the end goal for the group. This time can be chaotic with  lots of creative energy but it is not very focused. Leadership is extremely important at this stage to move past storming. Some groups never get out of this phase and it is the hardest phase. 

The relentless focus on inclusivity in many companies today can prolong this stage. According to current HR philosophy it is important to make sure everyone is heard but this can go too far and if the group does not become oriented toward a common goal they can never move on. This is a stage where the leader may have to use a more authoritarian style to move things along. This is also the stage where a leader will need to make decisions about the structure of the group. Some people may need to be removed from the team and it is also possible that the skill set of the group may not be robust enough for the task at hand. 

Next I will go through Norming, Performing and Adjourning.