I was out with some friends over the summer, one of whom is a college soccer coach, and we were talking about what it is that makes great teams great. I love talking to to coaches and people who have played for great coaches (just ask Ryan about how I always bug him for Coach K stories) -- they always seem to have the best social hacks to get people to work well together.
College teams can be particularly difficult to manage because the tenure is short and there's a lot of player turnover -- so the team dynamic is constantly being reset. It is similar in startups, where teams reshape and reform as they grow.
My coach friend described the process as "Form, Storm, Norm, and Perform". At the time, I took it to be another one of those witty and handy coach-isms, but, alas, it turns out this is an established group performance framework developed by psychology professor Bruce Tuckman back in 1965.
Anyway, I have been thinking about it a lot recently, as I see so many teams going through the various stages. For example, Plaid, which I mentioned last week, was acquired by Visa today for $5.3B -- a great product and from what I hear a really positive and effective team culture. Clearly in the "Perform" phase :-)
What I especially like about the framework is that it acknowledges the importance of, or at least the temporal existence of, the "storm" phase. The storm phase can be hard when you've never been through it before, because it contains conflict and you're not sure if it will end. But it does, and in the best situations, working through that is what enables you, and your team, to norm and perform.
Above all, what the framework reminds me of is that teamwork and success are about chemistry. Chemistry is hard to define, but it has a lot to do with trust. Trust in each other, trust in the vision, and trust in process. It is a beautiful thing when it comes together.
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