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The ‘Tuckman Model’ identifies several stages that a team goes through before it starts performing properly. The stages – referred to as Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing – will happen naturally, but you can speed up the process.

1 Forming stage. Forming is the introduction process, when people are literally finding out who is who, learning names, job titles, roles and ranks, and other people’s history. In order to get this stage successfully completed as quickly as possible, deliberately hold a ‘forming’ meeting. Ask everyone to introduce themselves and share this information.

case study A manager asked me to run a teambuilding course for his part-time IT project team. The team had spent 11 months and many thousands of pounds but had achieved nothing at all. Over two days of teambuilding, the team members properly introduced

2 Storming stage. The stage where, confident they are meant to be here, people start to ‘jockey for position’ – to establish their credibility in the team. Some will try to push themselves forward because they want power or influence; others will deliberately keep a low profile because they are shy, diffident or lacking in confidence. You need to set up activities that allow people to find their level of comfort – for example any of the teambuilding exercises you can find on websites such as www.businessballs.com.

3 Norming stage. This is when you start to establish the rules of behaviour between team members, and their relationships with you and people outside. The Norming phase can take quite a long time if left to happen naturally because the rules will be established by a combination of ‘trial and error’ and ‘custom and practice’. Take control by holding a team meeting to set up a formal ‘team charter’. See Secret 2.4 for more details.

4 Performing stage. Performing is the stage when the team is getting on with the tasks in hand. Milestones are reached, targets are met, internal friction is minimal, people are smiling and achieving.

Help your people get through the early stages of teambuilding quickly.

themselves to each other for the first time; they did a couple of exercises that allowed them to ‘storm’; and they produced their own team charter. They went on to achieve more in the following six weeks than they had in the previous 11 months.