Key ingredients for building a successful team

• The mission must be clearly defined and articulated, and everyone must understand it.
• All team members must be positive thinkers.
• Each team member must have enough self-confidence and self-respect to respect other team members.
• The team leader must always be on the lookout for distractions, tangents, and unproductive or ancillary issues.
• Each member must trust the motives of the other members.
• The team has to be as small as possible.

–H. David Aycock, former Chairman of Nucor

“If everyone on the team is able to say ‘I can work with this person’ about everyone else on the team, then you’ve got a good thing going. Generally, a good fit starts with shared values…If everyone on the team isn’t clear about the product (whatever it is that you’re trying to create) and the process (how you’re going to get where you need to be, who drives what, who is the ultimate decision maker), then there are going to be people problems.”

–Jonathan Roberts, Managing Director and Partner, Ignition Corp.

From “What Makes Teams Work? Unit of One,” by Regina Maruca, Fast Company, November 2000.

The stages of team development
The Tuckman Model, created in 1965 by Bob Tuckman, lists the classic four stages of team development: forming, storming, norming, and performing.

• Forming—Team members are introduced. They state why they’re a part of the team and what they hope to accomplish within it. Members cautiously explore the boundaries of acceptable group behavior. This is a stage of transition from individual to member status, and of testing the leader’s guidance both formally and informally.
• Storming—Storming is the most difficult stage for the team. Members begin to have their own ideas as to how the process should look; personal agendas are rampant. They begin to realize the tasks ahead are more difficult than they imagined. Impatient about the lack of progress, members argue about what actions the team should take. They try to rely solely on their personal and professional experience, and resist collaborating with most of the other team members.
• Norming—Members reconcile competing loyalties and responsibilities and find a focus. Everyone wants to share the newly found focus. Enthusiasm is high, and the team is tempted to go beyond the original scope of the process. They accept the team, team ground rules, their roles in the team, and the individuality of fellow members. Emotional conflict is reduced as previously competitive relationships become cooperative.
• Performing—The team settles its relationships and expectations. They begin performing by diagnosing, solving problems, and choosing and implementing changes.

From “Forming, Norming, Storming, Performing,” by Ingrid Bergner (undated).
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