What happens in the storming phase of team development
When individuals and groups of people work together it is inevitable that some issues will arise along the way. When you put differing personalities together they need to learn to work together and to maximise each other’s strengths whilst helping to compensate for each other’s weaknesses. There are many stages to team formation and after the team has been through the initial phase of forming they will move into the storming phase.
As the name would imply this is the most rocky part of the team development and is where you may find that small cliques start to develop and people start to compete for positions within the team. It is important that there is a strong leader that can help the team to navigate through this process as seamlessly as possible.
Any conflict that arises needs to be managed to ensure that it is constructive and that it doesn’t escalate into team arguments and lead to in-fighting between team members. This phase doesn’t have to be stressful, it can be used in a positive way to allow the group to identify people’s strengths and to then slot those people into relevant roles that will help to ensure that the project is a success.
Once the team no longer sees each member as a threat, but instead as a part of the team that will see them be successful you will find that they start to function as a cohesive unit and they will often need less management when they move into the next stages of the team development and celebrate with Team Gifts from places like Miller and Co.
