New employee best practices to perform with the team-Tuckman’s stages of group development
In the past 4 years, I have been part of 2 worlds leading product based organization and 2 startups. My work has always been research-oriented and mostly had neutral to sometimes ad hoc delivery deadlines.
By now you must have calculated the number of years I have spent in each organization. But to just help you I have recently joined my 4th organization and I am very happy. My hard and smart work has paid off.
The reason behind my happiness and satisfaction are multiple. If you are looking forward to joining a new organization, team or already part of a team and looking forward to ramp-up the team spirit within yourself or team, then let me tell you, my friend, I am going to share my 4 years of experience in few points.
I have seen the best working environment and few not very productive working environments. I am sharing 5 points which will help you to perform with the team in a few days. These five points are taken from the very well known Tuckman’s stages of group development model and in the sub-points of each stage, I have shared how I align my principles with the same.
Tuckman’s stages of group development
I was introduced to Tuckman’s model by my super manager in the year 2015 when I was interning. Since then these four points have always been on my practice list which is nurturing my people's managerial skills every day. The word performance is a big question not just for an employee but also for the recruiting team. Every time you change the team, you are faced with new challenges, rapid learning, interpersonal skill test and many more. Tuckman has really summarised the process of joining a new team in these 5 points.
1. Forming (Coordinating Behaviors)
When you join a team/company or go to a new place the first day is extremely welcoming. You are at your best behaviour and the team as well. Everyone wants you to be comfortable as much as you could be. You are briefed about everything happening in the team. You must be very curious to get to know all whats, whys, and hows of the team. Which is very good and expected. So, According to my experience, forming includes three sub-points. Explore, include and appreciate.
a. Explore
Before starting to talk more about this point I would like to make a confession — “In my first company when I did not know a lot of things but always had a curiosity about knowing everything I could explore a lot of things, In my second company I was much more confident and explored a lot on my own but somewhere down the line I met people who were not very keen in sharing knowledge but that never stopped me from sharing mine, in the third organization I never met people who ever choose to talk, share or discuss about technology even though it is supposed to be a very good organization and what an irony I remember the CTO of the same organisation giving me a feedback to explore on my last working day. But after I have joined my forth organization exploring has become my highest priority”.
So, what do you mean by exploring? To me, the first thing exploring means is getting up from my chair, a smile on my beautiful face, with my laptop or notebook and initiating a conversation with my teammates about the already existing projects (pipeline, code, task management, sprint guidelines), getting to know the organizational procedures (payrolls, leaves, stationeries, transportation), Intranet platforms (peoples page, self help, idea page, patent application portals). The most important point which I will emphasise is- 1. Asking questions, 2. Getting up from your chair, 3. Having a face to face conversation.
b.Include
This is a very important point for all of us. The degree of initiation varies from person to person. I learnt this in my second organization. “If you want to belong to a team you must participate”. Yes, I believe in this strongly. Most of the times you do not get to choose the people you would work with. Everyone has their own likes, principles, dislikes, mood and most important is their unique journey. You must keep that in mind, irrespective of many differences we work in a team and that is what a team is supposed to be. When you join a new team you should make efforts to participate. Initially, you would not be sure of why things are the way they are. You must include yourself. Attend all meetings, participate in celebrations, be a part of the team when an issue hits the team. Here also my mantra would be get up from the chair and move to the place you are needed.
c.Appreciate
In my first organization, I had a huge appreciation for everything happening around and how things were planned, managed and executed. In my second organization, I had a huge appreciation for the task and the freedom to build things were given to me, but in my third organization I saw people were scared to upgrade what was existing, they had everything but lacked appreciation for what they had already built (their efforts). In my current organization, I am amazed by the things my team has made, they take pride in the work they have done and the same is transferred into me. I have a huge appreciation for the work done by my team here.
So, when do you appreciate others work, You appreciate when you know what it takes to build a 100 from 0.
2. Storming (Coaching Behaviors)
Now the real work begins. The journey of exploring, including and appreciating will teach you a lot about the team and each individual. But you will learn only when you take up the above journey. If not storming and forming would be a parallel task.
You have been given a task to complete. Your delivery might be someone's input to their task or vice versa. The pace, smartness, calmness, planning and multiple skills of multiple people might be very different. Do not get frustrated if things do not work for the first time. You will have to keep a lot of patience with everyone and the same is expected from others. But what if others do not like the way of your work or do not consider your ideas and experience. I would suggest you explain to them your research points, call for a meeting and keep everyone updated, face to face communication is always the key. Also, it is good to push yourself but never a good idea to take work beyond your bandwidth. Deliver quality work and take efforts to deliver the first working version as soon as possible. Slowly and eventually everything would be fine as we all are working on a single goal and everyone wants to achieve it and we also know, none can achieve it alone.
I would like to share an incident of mine. In my previous company, I and another person were working on a project. I knew a solution to a problem our project has been facing and implementing that would have taken our results from 80 to 100. But since my teammate had already made the project pipeline and did not want to change anything. But I knew what was going to work. I tried to convince him without any proof of concept. We did not agree. So the very next day I implemented the whole idea and showed the results. Everyone was amazed by seeing the results. And finally, we had a system which preceded the performance of the last system in terms of numbers and scalability. Dear friends, it is not always easy to do this if you are not passionate and can afford the time to do that.
3. Norming and Re-norming (Empowering Behaviors)
When everyone in the team knows “we all are working on a single goal and everyone wants to achieve it and we also know, none can achieve it alone”. Slowly and eventually you and everyone in the team would start seeing the results and will start appreciating each other's efforts. You may still not like the taste of your teammate's music, food choices, clothing style but that should never bother you.
Storming sometimes overlaps with norming. As new tasks arise, groups may still experience a few conflicts. If you’ve already dealt with disagreement before, it will probably be easier to address this time.
Re-norming is a very common step which most of the times the team overlooks, some may notice and may not convey. This addition is designed to reflect that there is a period after Forming where the performance of a team gradually improves and the interference of a leader/new requirements content with that level of performance will prevent a team progressing through the Storming stage to true performance.
This puts the emphasis back on the team and leader as the Storming stage must be actively engaged in order to succeed — too many ‘diplomats’ or ‘peacemakers,’ especially in a leadership role, may prevent the team from reaching their full potential
4. Performing (Supporting Behaviors)
Here you go the fourth step in the journey, performing.
In the performing stage, members are confident, motivated and familiar enough with the project and their team that they can operate without supervision. Everyone is on the same page and driving full-speed ahead towards the final goal. The fourth stage is the one that all groups strive to reach. Yet, some do not make it. They usually fail to overcome conflict and can’t work together. But we are not going to be among them. We will follow all the steps and make great things. We will be bold, true and focussed to deliver the task.
One thing which everyone misses out here when we talk about performance we only remember to do all of the above when in our workplace, in all of this we forget to reset, recharge and revive ourselves time to time.
5.Outperforming & Adjourning (Expanding initiative and integrating new members)
Allow for flexibility in team roles, assist in the timing and selection of new member, create future leadership opportunities and that is how the cycle of group development continues.
Conclusion :
Find an activity which keeps your creativity, curiosity and charisma alive. I am a Senior Data Scientist and I always make time to participate in a group activity like dance, health care talks, visiting places and learning regional languages. Above all whatever you do, do it with full confidence, learn in the process and never forget to be grateful and thankful for the things you have. Whatever you do if your motive is correct, believe me, you will always come back home happy.
