making-sense-of-change-management

Team change• How can we achieve our goals without the support from others inthe organization?An alternative word to storming is ‘testing’. Individuals and the team as awhole are testing out the assumptions that had been made when the teamwas originally formed. Obviously different teams will experience this stagewith different degrees of intensity, but important points to note here are:• It is a natural part of the process.• It is a healthy part of the process.• It is an important part of the process.The storming phase – if successfully traversed – will achieve clarity aroundall the fundamental questions of the first phase, and enable common understandingof purpose and roles to be achieved. In turn it allows the authorityof the team leader to be seen and acknowledged, and it allows everyone totake up his or her rightful place within the team. It also gives team membersa sense of the way things will happen within the team. It becomes a templatefor future ways of acting, problem solving, decision making and relating.NormingThe third stage of team development occurs when the team finally settlesdown into working towards achievement of its task without too muchattention needed on the fundamental questions. As further challengesdevelop, or as individuals grow further into their roles, then furtherscrutiny of the fundamental questions may happen. They may bediscussed, but if they instead remain hidden beneath the surface this canresult in loss of attention on the primary task.Tuckman suggests in his review of the research that this settling processcan be relatively straightforward and sequential. The team movesthrough the storming phase into a way of working that establishes teamnorms. It can also be more sporadic and turbulent, with the team needingfurther storming before team norms are established. Indeed some readersmight have experienced teams that permanently move back and forthbetween the norming and storming stages – a clear signal that some teamissues are not being surfaced and dealt with.81