A young psychologist read fifty studies of small groups and found the same four stages in all of them — including the argument everybody wants to skip.
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Ten items. Say your answer out loud before you reveal it.
Read the sentence, guess the meaning of the word in bold, then reveal.
The three words are: settle · rival · take over. Read each meaning, say the word, then reveal.
One missing word fits every phrase in the group. Say it, then reveal.
Read each part. After it, answer the quick check from memory, then discuss one question.
In the early 1960s, a young American psychologist named Bruce Tuckman was working for the US Navy, studying how small groups behave. The Navy had a practical reason to care: crews, teams and committees must work together quickly, often with strangers.
Tuckman did something unglamorous. Instead of running a new experiment, he collected around fifty existing studies of small groups — therapy groups, training groups, work teams — and read them side by side, looking for a pattern.
There was one. The groups in these very different studies seemed to travel through the same sequence. In 1965 he published a short paper describing four stages, and gave them names that rhymed: forming, storming, norming, performing. That rhyme is probably why, sixty years later, managers still remember them.
1. Who was Tuckman working for?
2. What did he do instead of a new experiment?
3. Why do people still remember the four names?
1. The US Navy.
2. He collected and compared about fifty existing studies of small groups.
3. Because the names rhyme — they are easy to remember.
Forming is the polite beginning. People are careful, friendly and a little anxious. They ask what the group is for and watch to see who is in charge. Very little real work happens, although it often feels pleasant.
Storming is the difficult part. As people relax, differences appear: about the goal, the method, and who decides. People clash, become rivals, or go quiet and complain to each other privately. Many teams try to skip this stage — and skipping it is exactly why some teams stay polite and useless for years.
Norming is the agreement. The group works out how it will operate: who does what, how decisions are made, what is acceptable. Often nobody writes it down.
Performing is the reward. The team can disagree without damage and work without constant supervision. Tuckman's point is that you cannot arrive here without passing through the storm.
1. What happens in the forming stage?
2. Why is storming useful, even though it is unpleasant?
3. What is agreed in the norming stage?
1. People are polite and anxious; they ask what the group is for and who leads; little real work is done.
2. The disagreements are real, and a team that avoids them never reaches the later stages.
3. How the group works: roles, decisions and acceptable behaviour.
In 1977, Tuckman returned to the model with a colleague, Mary Ann Jensen, and added a fifth stage: adjourning — the end. Projects finish, classes graduate, teams disband. People often feel the loss, and organisations often ignore it entirely.
The model has plenty of critics. Real teams do not march neatly through five steps: a new member or a new boss can push a performing team straight back into storming. Some teams never storm; some storm forever. And the evidence behind the stages is thinner than the model's fame suggests.
Its real value is different: it takes something uncomfortable and makes it normal. A team in its first argument does not think “we have failed”; it thinks “we are in stage two.” Sometimes the whole usefulness of a thinking tool is that it gives people permission.
1. What is the fifth stage, and when was it added?
2. Give one criticism of the model.
3. What does the model do for a team having its first argument?
1. Adjourning — the end of the team — added in 1977 with Mary Ann Jensen.
2. Any one: teams don't move neatly through the stages; a new member can send a team back; some never storm; the evidence is thin.
3. It tells them the argument is normal — stage two, not failure.
Five stages, in order. The arrows go round because a change — a new member, a new goal, a new boss — can send a team backwards.
Which stage is each team in? Choose, then check.
1. Storming — open conflict about roles and power.
2. Forming — polite, cautious, no real work yet.
3. Performing — productive, and conflict no longer damages the team.
4. Norming — rules and roles are being agreed.
5. Storming — a change pushed the team back into stage two.
6. Adjourning — the team is ending, and the loss is not being handled.
Teams don't move in a straight line. They loop, jump and go backwards.
The evidence is thin. It came from reading other people's studies, not from testing the stages.
It can excuse bad behaviour. “We're just storming” is sometimes the truth — and sometimes a cover for rudeness or bullying.
Stages take time, and teams talk about how long: we've worked together for two years. This is the tense English uses for something that started in the past and is still true.
Write for or since in each gap.
1. The two departments have shared an office January.
2. I've known my oldest friend twenty-five years.
3. Nothing has changed the new manager arrived.
4. We've been waiting for an answer three weeks.
5. He's played for the same club he was sixteen.
1. since
2. for
3. since
4. for
5. since
Put the verb in brackets into the right tense.
1. The team (work) well together since the spring — long may it last.
2. Our first project (finish) in 2021, and the group broke up.
3. How long you (be) in this job?
4. She (join) us three months ago, and she (settle) in very quickly since then.
1. has worked / has been working
2. finished (a finished time)
3. have … been
4. joined … has settled
Now say how long you have been in three groups: your job, a class, a family role — one with for, one with since, one in the continuous.
Use the stages on real groups. Choose a task, start the timer, and talk.
Choose a group you belong to now. Which stage is it in, and what is the evidence?
Describe a disagreement in a group you know. Did the group come out stronger, or not?
Think of a group that ended: a class, a job, a team. How was the ending handled? How should it have been?