Episode #219: The Four Stages Of Building A Team

When do we create teams? Usually we inherit teams from other people, stocked with their selections and built around their preferences and prejudices, not ours. Sometimes we might get to start something new and we get to choose who joins. Does that mean that “team building” only applies when we start a new team? If that were the case, then most of us would never experience building a team in our careers. This idea is too narrow. In reality, we are building our teams every day, regardless of whether we suddenly became their leader or whether we brought them in or we started from scratch.

Teams are fluid. People come and go, so there is never an end point of team building. “Yeah, it’s built” would be fatal last words, because before you have even drained the champagne flute in celebration, your best performer is heading off to bigger and better things with your competitor.

So we are constantly adding to the team, even if we kicked it off ourselves. New people arrive with their own work culture, cobbled together like a coat of many colours from from their previous employment. The team has to coalesce again and again and we are the orchestra conductor, getting all the specialists to “play nice” together and in harmony. It helps to remind ourselves that there are four stages of team building.

Uncertainty

If we have newly arrived into a team as the boss or whenever new members are injected into the existing team, we are in stage one of team building. In Japan, this is a tricky stage. If we are new, the team is uncertain of us. They have been moulded by our predecessor, have worked each other out. Here we are, all shiny and new with our “whacky” ideas , idiosyncrasies, foibles, penchants and talents. If we later bring in someone new, now the whole team has to regroup again. What will this person be like, are they going to be cooperative, nice, trustworthy? What will happen to my role – is it safe, will it change?

Anxiety

If we know there is this uncertainty stage then we can prepare for it. Often though, the “new broom” arrives, puffed up with their own massive self-belief, hubris, ambition and zeal. They scare the team because they blow up everyone’s comfort zone. Things start to change rapidly and few are up for the roller coaster ride about to commence.

People’s roles start to change as the new boss reorganizes things. Performance standards are invariably raised, because the new leader is here to show their metal. Life becomes more fraught for some and they look for ways to protect themselves. If things become too intense or too dire in Japan in foreign multi-nationals, then senior executives or headquarters start to receive anonymous communication, telling what a jerk this new boss is and pointing out in florid detail how they are destroying the business.

In smaller Japanese operations and in Western organisations there is a possibility some people are going to be moved out. “Am I next?”, is a permanent question in the minds of the survivors. New people are being absorbed into the team, but this takes time and creates a sense of instability in the team. Are these new folk going to be “teacher’s pet” because the new boss hired them or are they going to become part of the existing team? Are they with “us” or “them”?

Clarity

The card carrying “boss watchers” in the team, that is to say, the whole team, start to work the new boss out. The intelligence, skill set, experience, capability, emotional quotient, etc., are very carefully calibrated. The navigation required for the new boss is gradually discovered and people adjust to the new style or they just leave if they don’t like it. People don’t leave companies – they leave bosses.

The new arrivals get a similar ruler run over them, to measure how well they will fit in. If they don’t fit in, then the herd groups together and tries to isolate them out. So, if they stay, then they have been successfully acclimatised to the dominant culture of the work group. This is often the opposite of what the boss desired to happen. They expected the new people would be sprinkling their latest version pixy dust on the “old” team members and creating change.

Consistency

Presuming the new boss doesn’t blow the whole thing up and go down in flames, then things start to settle down. People get used to the new work requirements, their new colleagues, new boss, new targets and get back to focusing on their work. The team might even improve their performance and enjoy the recognition which comes with success. If the boss is any good, then the team now have a greater sense of shared responsibility toward achieving the targets and to supporting each other.

Just when all this harmony and light comes together, the boss gets sent somewhere else to a new role and a new shiny boss arrives. Here we go again.