Crafting a Team Charter to Work Through the ‘Storming’ Phase
Psychologist Bruce Tuckman first documented the stages of group development in 1965. He confirmed that teams go through five stages of development: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning.
During the Storming stage, team members settle in, get more comfortable with each other, and become more candid in their discussions.
Disagreements over decisions and differing viewpoints occur more frequently.
The respect and cordiality that occurred during the Forming phase occasionally get replaced with quarreling and expressions of annoyance. Disputes can erupt any time a team member takes a strong stance on an issue or topic.
How a team handles and works through the Storming stage is critically important for long-term success.
When team leaders recognize the group has reached the Storming phase, they would be wise to craft a Team Charter to offset the negative effects of conflict between team members.
A Team Charter is a collaboratively produced agreement that commonly includes four critical components: a succinctly stated Team purpose, a list of long-term Team goals and objectives, Team roles and responsibilities, and a catalog of Team norms and ground rules.
Each of the components assists the team in overcoming unnecessary conflict, but it is the rules of conduct that offer a team the biggest lift.
The rules of engagement inside the Team Charter dictate what team members expect of each other.
The rules describe the specific behaviors the team agrees to abide by. Rules that address candidness, transparency, respect, feedback, disputes, and confidentiality are common. So are commitments to decision-making processes and sharing communication outside of the team.
While there are no “right” rules, specific behaviors are better than general principles (“We will address each other respectfully by waiting for our turn to speak” or “We will avoid inflammatory language at all times” versus “We will be respectful of each other.”)
Once the charter exists, the team leader should ask everyone on the team to publicly commit to the standards and agree to confront any violation of the agreed-upon rules of engagement.
This makes everyone on the team accountable to each other.
With the help of a well-crafted Team Charter, teams emerge stronger and more cohesive through the Storming phase, setting themselves up for more collaboration and higher-quality decision-making in the next stages.
Teams can’t skip over the Storming phase, but they can use tools, like the Team Charter, to avoid unnecessary conflict.
Successful team collaboration is not the absence of conflict but the ability to work through it.
Great stuff around creating team charters. The more teams can discuss how they like to work, who does what and what behaviors are acceptable, the more team members understand one another.
And understanding leads to working together in a much more constructive way.
After all, if you don't know how other people like to work, how do you know?
One manager I worked with gave everyone a mug at Christmas with the team values on it - that was a great success.
If you like building and maintaining high-performing teams (who doesn't?), I highly recommend Gordon Curphy's book, The Rocket Model. Based on studying real work teams, it's easy to read and full of practical tips and exercises, especially given that it is research-based. You won't find this book at your local bookstore, but abebooks.com has used copies for LT $10.