Forming

Remember your first day at work. You put your best face on. You are polite, perhaps formal and try to assess the team, the culture and how best to fit in. You might hear some jargon and are too polite to ask what it means or have an idea and hold back in sharing it. You do not want to appear stupid. There is low trust and high self-protection. This is the forming stage.  

Everyone is polite and nice, putting their best image forward. Team members are wary, positive and demonstrate their best behaviour. There may be some anxiety as members do not fully understand the function of the team or the rules. Some may be simply excited. Some people cover their anxiety by being overly brash or dominant. It is all an act at this stage. 

Your role as a leader is to recognise this, accept it, then initiate activities to move team members towards performing. You play the dominant role because people look to the leader to give guidance, assign roles and responsibilities and role model accepted behaviours. The clearer you are in your expectations and communication, the easier it is for others to feel safe enough to move forward. Your job is to create psychological safety so people can be themselves. 

We all have common needs when entering a group, the primary ones being:

➤ A need for psychological safety (which is often initially provided in groups by structure).

➤ A need for familiarity: Customs, routines, habits (group norms)

➤ A need for connection. How are people welcomed, connected, included?

The forming stage is when people are navigating and getting accustomed to the team. This stage can last some time as people settle into the new environment. Be patient, but do not let it linger to long. I like to name it. I say, “Hey, I see we are all being very polite. That is great. We are in the forming stage. I know we are moving forward when we start having some unfiltered healthy conflict with each other.” 

Established teams go through this stage each time a new member of the team is welcomed so it is important for the leader to be focused always on team stages. 

Behavioural level:

Each team member’s focus is on the leader, seeking the leader’s guidance and authority and maintaining a polite but distant relationship with others. The team is finding its feet, and members are on their best behaviour. They meet only when asked, to learn about goals and tasks and to get to know their colleagues. Discussion centres on projects and tasks and less personal information flows as people remain guarded. 

Psychological level: 

Your team members are likely to be in self-preservation mode - focusing on ‘I’ more than ‘we’. They are concerned with themselves, the impression they are making, how they fit in, and nurture their relationship to the group leader first. If the new members already know each other, they may stick together, forming safe cliques which may exclude others.

Individuals remain guarded, preferring ‘safe’ exchanges about work or superficial topics. All the while they are scanning the team to work out the ‘the rules of engagement’.

Leader’s role: 

Don't underestimate the importance of the leaders role from the first interaction. In the forming stage there needs to be someone who is clearly in charge and role modelling the behavioural norms. The leader may need to be more directive initially, setting the meetings, setting expectations, providing clarity by setting the team’s purpose and objectives, defining roles and responsibilities. A skilled leader also invests time listening and seeking to understand others, creating safety, and acts as the role-model of the behaviours they want to embed in the team.