A team is not made by its lineup but by time.
A lineup only gives you a list of names. It does not yet give you a team. A team is a well-practiced fabric of roles, rules and trust – and that has to grow first.
The team principle in detail
Four steps through the principle: understand, check, connect, apply. Open any topic to read more.
The explanationThe reason is simple. At the start, no one knows exactly who can do what, who decides what and how people deal with one another here.
- The reason is simple.
- At the start, no one knows exactly who can do what, who decides what and how people deal with one another here.
- No job description settles these questions.
- They are settled by working together: through tasks, through mistakes, often through friction as well.
- “Time” therefore means shared experience, not just months on the calendar.
Read closelyWhat the principle says – and what it doesn’t
A good lineup is the beginning, not the result. What makes a team grows only through working together.
- Strictly speaking
- Time is necessary, but it is not enough. Some groups stay stuck in conflict. If you just wait, you will not automatically end up with a mature team.
- There is no fixed sequence of phases that applies to all teams. Teams often mature in leaps rather than steadily. Conflict is normal in the early phases, but it is not a mandatory stage.
- The principle applies to groups that work together over a longer period. Highly trained professionals with fixed roles, such as flight crews or surgical teams, can start working immediately because they learned their roles beforehand.
The signs3 signs that the principle is at work · 3 that it is missing
- The leader expects a start-up period and plans for it.
- Roles and rules are clarified explicitly.
- Early friction is worked through rather than complained about.
- Full performance is expected from day one.
- At the first sign of trouble, people are swapped out.
- The team is reshuffled so often that it never gets past the beginning.
The research6 sources: 4 reviews, 2 primary studies · 1965–2010 · with research limitations
- low
- moderate
- high
Moderate – that groups change measurably over time is established; a fixed sequence of phases that is the same for all teams is not.
- 1965Bruce W. Tuckman
Analysis of 50 articles on the developmental stages of groups. From this came the model forming – storming – norming – performing.
- 1977Bruce W. Tuckman & Mary Ann C. Jensen
Review of 22 studies from ten years: only one tested Tuckman’s hypothesis directly. The authors add a fifth stage (adjourning) and call for more empirical work.
- 1988Connie J. G. Gersick
Eight natural project teams over their entire life span: an alternation of inertia and upheaval instead of fixed phases. The trigger is awareness of time and deadlines, not the amount of work completed.
- 2003Susan A. Wheelan, Barbara Davidson & Felice Tilin
26 work groups (conversation analysis) and 88 groups (survey): longer-standing groups show fewer expressions of dependency and conflict and more work on the task.
- 2006Steve W. J. Kozlowski & Daniel R. Ilgen
Major overview of team effectiveness: a team’s cognition, motivation and behavior emerge over time from working together and can be fostered through training, leadership and design.
- 2010Denise A. Bonebright
History of the Tuckman model: popular first among practitioners, then widely adopted in academia – partly for lack of applicable research.
- Tuckman’s phases come from a literature review, mostly of therapy, training and laboratory groups, and have hardly been tested directly.
- The finding that older groups work more maturely rests mainly on cross-sectional comparisons.
- It does not follow that every group will mature if you just wait.
Read more: what the research shows
The field is called group development: it studies how groups change over the course of their existence. The best-known framework is Bruce W. Tuckman’s phase model, with the stages forming, storming, norming and performing. Susan A. Wheelan, Barbara Davidson and Felice Tilin found that longer-standing work groups show, on average, less dependency and conflict and do more work on the task. Connie J. G. Gersick, by contrast, observed in project teams not a steady progression through phases but an alternation of inertia and upheaval, triggered by awareness of time and deadlines. In their overview, Steve W. J. Kozlowski and Daniel R. Ilgen describe how a team’s thinking, motivation and behavior emerge over time from working together.
The originFrom team research · not from John C. Maxwell
- 1965OriginFrom team research
Earliest source: Bruce W. Tuckman
- 2001For comparison
John C. Maxwell has no separate law for it; the idea is only hinted at in “The Law of Dividends.”
The related team principles11 Attunement · 12 Reliability · 14 Conflict · 22 Investment
The principle is the time axis for “Attunement”, “Reliability” and “Conflict” and fits with “Investment”.
“Leadership” has to deliver something different in each phase.
The action steps5 steps: Plan a start-up period for every new team, and make that clear to your own superiors as well.
- Plan a start-up period for every new team, and make that clear to your own superiors as well. Do not measure a young team against a well-established one.
- Clarify early what would otherwise stay open for a long time: who has which role? Who decides what? How do we treat one another?
- Use deadlines and the midpoint of a project for a deliberate pause: what is working, what will we change? Teams often change course at such moments.
- Do not see early conflicts as failure. But step in when camps form and the dispute becomes entrenched.
- Change the lineup with care. Every change sets the team back a little.
The questions for your team3 questions for your team conversation: Where are we as a team right now – still sorting ourselves out, or already working on the task itself?
- Where are we as a team right now – still sorting ourselves out, or already working on the task itself?
- Which question about roles, rules or decisions is still unresolved in our team?
- What did the last change in our lineup cost us, and what did we learn from it?
Take time for one question at your next team meeting. Talk about it openly and note down what you take away from it.
The picture to rememberThe dots find one another loosely, rub against each other, fall into order and finally rotate as one.
- The dots find one another loosely, rub against each other, fall into order and finally rotate as one.
- Meanwhile, a timeline fills up at the bottom.
What the Team Principle of Development looks like in practice
Four Sets a Night
When the Beatles arrive in Hamburg in August 1960, their drummer has been with them for only a few days. At the Indra they play four sets a night, seven days a week, later 92 nights in a row – two years on, five young musicians have become a band, with a different lineup from the one they started with.
Seven Years to the First Title
In 1984 the Chicago Bulls sign Michael Jordan, who scores 63 points in a playoff game in Boston in 1986 – and still ends up on the losing side. They win their first title in 1991, in his seventh season and after three straight playoff defeats against Detroit.
Two Years Under Glass – and Two Camps
On September 26, 1991, four women and four men in Arizona have themselves sealed inside Biosphere 2 for two years; the harvests fall short of plan, and the oxygen level drops. After about six months, the group splits into two camps.
