The storming dip
Bruce Tuckman’s work on team cohesion was written in 1965. It’s still relevant today.
Every team moves through four stages; forming, storming, norming and performing.
Before a team really clicks, they dip through a valley of conflict and renegotiation.
This storming dip is necessary. It is a team doing the hard work of becoming one. It’s called storming because this is where we learn about each other’s styles, how to communicate, how to have the necessary conversations to maintain performance before we settle into the ‘norming’ ways of work.
Yet the storming dip is where most culture change initiatives die.
Leaders see the dip and assume they have got it wrong or worse, agree to disagree so that they can move on.
So they abandon the real change just before it has the chance to pay off, and the team never reaches a state of true norming, let alone performing.
Teams with little say over their culture rarely make it out of storming at all. Those given real agency, understand the behaviour change required to get to performing and move through it faster.
The dip is the point where the culture starts to stick. If your team hasn't respectfully argued about how it wants to work, it hasn't started the team building process properly yet.
Download my new white paper ‘Making Culture Change Stick’ to find out more about how you can build, change or retain a great place to work at www.colindellis.com/culture-papers
