The Team Building Effectiveness Profile

Success in any organization today rests heavily upon how well you perform as a team. Most people will accept that a champion team will beat a team of individual champions—but how do you create a champion team? Unfortunately, effective teams never just happen; they have to be built. Usually this building process has to be done carefully and has to be customized to the particular needs of each team. Well before any attempt has been made to build the team, it is critical to understand the stages through which a typical team will travel over time. A considerable amount of research has been done on the stages of team growth. This suggests that teams go through four distinct phases—these are:

  1. Forming: When any team comes together, or forms, its members continuously explore the boundaries of acceptable behavior within the group. For most teams, this is usually an exciting, if somewhat nervous, time for team members. Emotions such as anticipation, optimism, pride, and hope all mix with emotions such as suspicion, fear, and anxiety—all at the same time. This needs to be slowly but effectively reconciled.  

  2. Storming: Having tested the water several times with their toes, every individual now immerses themselves and tries to “swim.” However, the skills to swim together are not yet fully developed, and the water is deeper and the tide stronger than may have been thought. As a result, a certain amount of concern may set in. The team is often too immature for collaboration, experiences some value lashes and the group often operates less as a team than it did in the “honeymoon” phase. 

  3. Norming: Here the team works out the basic operational ground rules within the group and learns how to swim in the water by learning to cooperate. Although the team maintains much of its critical questioning of the way forward, the new ground rules make this criticism more constructive and positive. At this stage, team collaboration and confidence grows, and the team develops a sense of identity. 

  4. Performing: For those teams that make it, the performance phase is the “pay off” time. Relationships have stabilized, and group problem-solving is now crisp and effective. Strengths and weaknesses of the team are now well understood and cooperation occurs naturally according to needs. The team is now a cohesive, well-oiled unit, capable of achieving high levels of output and growth.  

Within these four phases, seven competencies of teambuilding can be derived. These are:

  1. Vision and directional focus (FORMING) 
  2. Alignment of values (FORMING) 
  3. Team role and competency clarity (STORMING) 
  4. Ground rules determination (NORMING) 
  5. Performance appraisal effectiveness (NORMING) 
  6. Team learning and results focus (PERFORMING) 
  7. Boundary management (PERFORMING) 

If your success is directly tied to your ability to build and lead effective teams, this assessment will pay dividends to you year after year!