In times of ongoing uncertainty, we confirm that no team is immune to change, and the question that troubles many is: how should we act now and in the period ahead?
In 1965, Bruce Tuckman, a psychologist and researcher, published a model that redefined the existing view of group behavior. He identified that all teams go through four stages, which he called: Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing.
Stage 1: Forming
In the forming stage, there is a mix of emotions among team members. On one hand, there is excitement about something new; on the other, a set of questions invades individual thinking: What role will I have in this context? What is the team’s objective? Who can I trust? In sports, this description quickly brings to mind pre-seasons, when “everything starts again.”
Stage 2: Storming
In this stage, the name itself indicates what happens at the core of a team. Team members tend to challenge one another while searching for their roles, and the first conflicts emerge. The team’s modus operandi is put to the test as new ideas arise. In this context, as Tuckman points out, collective performance tends to decline due to the changes the team is going through.
Stage 3: Norming
In the third stage, norming, rules, processes, and procedures begin to be applied consistently. Each individual becomes aware of their role within the team and, as a result, levels of trust and cohesion increase. In sports terms, this stage resembles the moment when the coach’s game ideas start to be well executed by the team. However, performance is still not at the level the leader believes it can reach.
Stage 4: Performing
The fourth stage, performing, emerges without prior notice. The team reaches a consistently high level of performance. Everyone knows their position, works toward a shared purpose that is greater than individual goals, engages in open and healthy discussions, and achieves success. The best sports example of this stage is when we hear that players are able to “play with their eyes closed,” because they know their teammates’ movements and the most successful plays.
Twelve years after developing this model, and together with Mary Ann Jensen, Tuckman added a new stage: adjourning (dissolution). This stage represents the natural end of a project and brings back the fear of the unknown regarding what will happen next. Sports fans know this feeling well. After a significant period of success and seeing the best players leave, there is often fear that the team will stop winning.
Tuckman’s focus in this study was to help leaders better understand the people within their teams, highlighting that success in task execution varies according to the relationships between team members. Over the years, practical experience has shown that these stages are not rigid. After the performing stage, the next stage is not always adjourning. In experienced teams, changes often occur—caused by external or internal factors—leading the team to move back one or more stages.
A situation like the current political turmoil and its potential consequences can cause a team that was in a high-performance stage to regress to storming or even forming. Doubts, anxieties, and uncertainty take over the thinking of all team members.
Regarding internal causes, many of them resulting from leadership decisions, teams can be pushed back into the roller-coaster loop. Examples include mid-season signings, changing the team captain, or replacing the coach. All of these can move the team back to an earlier stage of development.
However, this is not necessarily negative. Winning teams make changes. Otherwise, how could performance improve? Many leaders fear that their changes will not lead to improvement. Worse still, when immediate results do not appear and external pressure increases, some leaders stop halfway through the norming process and try to return to the perceived safety of previous performance levels.
The truth is that no team achieves lasting success without implementing change. And change often means moving back to stages such as norming, storming, or even forming.
So, what is the leader’s role in this process? To shorten as much as possible the time it takes to move from forming to performing. How? By acting according to what each stage requires.
In the forming stage, when team members are confused and uncertain about the future, the leader must demonstrate vision by indicating the direction to follow and the objectives to achieve. No high-performance team exists without goals. How could one run a marathon without knowing where the finish line is?
In the storming stage, where change occurs—and we know how difficult change can be—the leader needs strong active listening skills and must clarify roles and tasks to enable faster acceptance. This allows the team to move into the norming stage, where processes begin to be systematized, even if not yet consistently. The leader must remain confident in the strategy, even without immediate results, and invest heavily in coaching, training, and feedback so that occasional behaviors become systematic. Then, the magic happens: the performing stage.
In the performing stage, it is essential for the leader to recognize superstars and rock stars and apply the appropriate strategies to each profile. In addition, delegation and the creation of new objectives are key leadership responsibilities. Winning one game is difficult; winning consecutively while adapting the team to new challenges is even harder. This is why successful coaches often celebrate victories briefly—their focus quickly shifts to the next game in order to prolong the performing stage.
When this success eventually ends—and it will end one day—the team enters the adjourning stage. At that moment, the leader’s main role is to review the strategy, recognize the key team members, and begin defining new objectives so that the return to the performing stage happens as quickly as possible.
Successful teams are those that not only sustain longer periods of performing but also experience shorter phases of adjourning, forming, storming, and norming. And what is the leader’s role? The leader becomes more effective the greater their ability to adapt to the context, influencing, guiding, and making the best decisions tailored to each stage of team development.
