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What is the Team Life Cycle?

This article is the first in a six-part series on the team life cycle.

The team life cycle is a sequence of stages every team experiences, regardless of industry or business size. It was coined by Bruce Tuckman in 1965, and it consists of five stages: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. Understanding which stage our team is in can help us address issues, capitalize on opportunities, and empower our teams.

Forming Stage

Forming is the initial stage of a team life cycle. This is where the team is brought together and starts to define its purpose and goals. Team members may be excited about the opportunity to work together. Though there may be uncertainty about what leaders expect of them and how they will work together. During this stage, team leaders should focus on clearly communicating the team’s goals and roles. As well as, encouraging team members to share their ideas and expectations.

Storming Stage

The storming stage is when team members begin to express their opinions and ideas. This can lead to conflict and tension. Team members may be competing for power and control. There may be disagreements about how to approach the task at hand. During this stage, team leaders should focus on facilitating open and honest communication. We should also encourage team members to work through their conflicts in a constructive way.

 

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Norming Stage

The norming stage is the smooth-sailing, everyone’s-getting-along stage where the team starts to work like an actual team, resolving conflicts and establishing a sense of cohesion. Team members are now more comfortable with each other, and have a clearer understanding of their roles and goals. Team leaders should focus on maintaining open communication and encouraging team members to continue to share their ideas and collaborate.

Roles and goals are essential in any team. Each member has a specific role that helps move the team closer to its overall objective. The roles and goals can vary. It depends on the nature of the team, the industry they’re in, and the project they’re working on. Each role is equally important, and all team members must understand their roles. As well as common goals and how meeting these goals contributes to the team’s success.

Performing Stage

The performing stage is when the team is fully functional, focused, and productive – a well-oiled machine. Team members have a clear understanding of their roles and work together effectively. In this phase, team members may occasionally be asked to sacrifice their “safety” for the greater good of the team. For example, a team member may take on a task outside their job description to bolster another teammate who may be falling behind. It’s essential for team leaders to keep the team motivated, supported, and on track during this phase. Any issues that arise should be addressed promptly, and any team members that go above and beyond should be recognized and rewarded for their efforts.

Adjourning Stage

Finally, the adjourning stage is the final stage of the team life cycle, where the team completes its task and disbands. Team members may feel a sense of accomplishment, but also sadness at the end of the team’s journey. This stage also occurs when some teammates leave or new team members come aboard. During this stage, team leaders should focus on recognizing the team’s accomplishments and thanking team members for their contributions.

Conclusion – Team Life Cycle

Understanding the team life cycle is essential for any leader. It helps leaders understand their team’s dynamics and challenges, address various issues before they capsize the team, identify where support is needed, capitalize on opportunities, and empower the team. By understanding the different stages of the team life cycle, leaders can help their teams move smoothly through each stage, ultimately leading to a more productive and successful team.

 

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Myths of Change Management

There are a number of areas that affect the success rate of change management projects. In fact, research from McKinsey and Co shows that 70% of all transformations fail. Ultimately, change is not optional, but it is a choice. It is the job of a leader to create the conditions that support change and promote the choice to embrace it.

In this 50-minute video, Peter Keith and Jonathan Clark touch on some of the common myths of change management that leaders buy into–often to their own detriment.  They will also explain how to avoid these pitfalls during your own change management project and outline the five pre-conditions for contentedness in an organization as a way to understand how employees may perceive change. 

Presenters

Jonathan Clark & Peter Keith, The Eighth Mile Consulting

Length of Video

51 minutes

Video Highlights

0:00 – Myths of Change Management #1: “Change Management Comes Down to the Manager”

0:25 – Industry Example: Making Policy Change

1:18 – Individual Ideals vs Organizational Values

2:16 – How Change Management is Like Driving a Car

4:10 – Myths of Change Management #2: “If the Change Is Good Enough, People Will Accept It”

4:30 – Using Wants, Needs, and Knowledge to Overcome Fear and Resistance to Change

8:36 – Myths of Change Management #3: “Leadership Isn’t Essential In Change Management”

10:01 – Leadership vs Management

10:58 – Listening-Based Communication

13:34 – Leadership Doesn’t Need a Title

15:40 – Defining and Communicating Values As a Leader

18:20 – Provide Systems and Processes to Create Effective Leaders

20:47 – Myths of Change Management #4: “Change is Optional”

21:28 – The Concept of “Burning The Ships”

22:22 – The SCARF Model (Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, Fairness) for Contentedness

25:11 – Change is a Choice

30:19 – Myths of Change Management #5: “Change Management is a Small Team Responsibility”

30:58 – Scapegoating a Team Prevents Learning From Mistakes

32:39 – Expectation Management

34:40 – Change Must Be Linked to Overall Business Strategy

36:13 – The Role of External Parties

37:15 – Question to the Attendees: What is Your Experience with Change Management?

45:29 – Wrap-Up

47:37 – Storytime: Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Company Overview

Eighth Mile Consulting is a leadership training and consulting agency focused on creating and supporting better leaders in all industries. If you are seeking to develop yourself professionally, we have created an online leadership course to help you become better, more resilient leaders for your team.

For more helpful videos to help you grow your people and your organization, subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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Why Good People Are Like Vampires

Why Good People Are Like Vampires. It’s an interesting analogy to use in business.

In 1998 the movie Blade was released starring Wesley Snipes. This movie explains a world existing with both humans and vampires. It details how humans continue to go about their lives not knowing about the dark underbelly culture of vampires existing in the shadows. Within the movie, the vampires have created clans, alliances, professional networks, financial independence, and structure. Their community is well-resourced, well-run, and powerful.

Since leaving the military I have observed the corporate world through a number of different lenses:

  • Veteran lens
  • Family lens
  • Charity/Non-for-Profit lens
  • Business Owner lens

My observations are leading me towards a unique standpoint; ‘good people’ are similar in so many ways to the vampire community in Blade, except their intent is entirely different.

 

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Observations

I continually see positive and passionate individuals attracting other amazing individuals. They are conceiving, planning, and delivering amazing initiatives behind the scenes of many others who are worried only about themselves. These amazing people are:

  • Having backdoor discussions to find ways to resource positive projects that will help others.
  • Linking positive people with other powerful networks
  • Finding ways around the red tape and bureaucracy in order to get positive and rewarding ideas up and moving
  • Negating the effects of negativity and toxic work cultures by providing each other with support networks and frameworks which allow them to maintain their resilience and momentum when the odds are against them
  • The list goes on…

The Eighth Mile Consulting

I feel truly honoured that positive people would include me and my team in this exclusive sub-culture. It is something I prize and take very seriously but entry is not free. It requires the demonstration of certain behaviours and values in order to be considered for entry. These characteristics and behaviours are evidently not for everyone:

  • Our projects and ideas must serve others. This might be the environment, the community, and professional and personal development. It is okay to make money. No one should say otherwise, but the higher purpose must be there!
  • People are willing to ‘put skin in the game’. This might mean having to receive a temporary revenue hit because you choose not to support a negative organisation, project, or individual. It might mean, donating time to things that don’t make money but significantly help others. It might also equate to working after or before hours in order to support something you might never see the benefits of, but you know will help people.
  • We are always loyal to other positive people! Your actions speak louder than words. When one of the team is knocked down, we all bond together and fight the negativity away. No excuses. I am not going to suggest that this is always easy. Because it is not. It also requires making hard decisions at times. But it is a necessary feature of the community and it is a criterion for claiming to be a ‘good person’.

Conclusion

We founded The Eighth Mile Consulting on a mantra of ‘Good People, Helping Good People’. In doing so we accept that this means there is a level of exclusivity in what we do. We also accept that in some ways it will affect our revenue and growth. I don’t care.

Good people attract good people and that’s enough for me. Of note though, being a good person is rightfully great for business.

I put it to you that if you are surprisingly absent from these positive people and these backdoor discussions. Then you might not have been invited in yet. Not to worry. You now know the rules of the game and the expectations associated with entry.

I hope in time we might cross paths and be involved in the same positive projects and initiatives. Until then, safe travels.

 

Contact Us

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How do your projects link to your people and your overarching strategy?

David Neal and Jonathan Clark from The Eighth Mile Consulting explain how projects link to people and the overarching strategy.

At our recent Aligned Leaders Summit, we had a number of conversations with our attendees during the lunch break that brought to the surface the question of what it is that’s stopping most projects from moving forward and what we see being the largest issues when it comes to managing projects.

Many projects that we have encountered, and do encounter on a daily basis, do not consider these three main areas, which we explain further in this short presentation:

  1. Strategy
  2. Projects
  3. People

In this video, we explain exactly how your projects link to your people and your overarching strategy.

For more helpful videos to help you grow your people and your organisation subscribe to our YouTube channel.

What are your thoughts or learnings when it comes to managing projects in your organisation? Let us know in the comments below!

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Why we helped create a medicinal cannabis platform designed specifically for Australian Veterans

An article by David Neal (Director), The Eighth Mile Consulting

In 2017, I medically discharged from the Australian Army due to a myriad of injuries that were gained throughout my time in the Infantry Corps. This is not unusual or special in any way, in fact it is quite a regular occurrence for serving members to medically discharge due to their service caused injuries.

Where my story diverges from the norm is the way that I ultimately addressed the problem surrounding my chronic injuries, and the way in which my team and I are now trying to give our precious findings back to our Veteran community, and provide them with a solution that might help them win their battles.

Throughout my career I had dealt with my injuries in the same way nearly everyone in the service does, by popping Ibuprofen and Panadol like they are tic tac’s, overshadowed by a deep love for beer, bourbon and scotch.

Over time, as the number of broken bones and joints grew as did the need for stronger solutions with an emphasis on Codeine and Opiate solutions. Over time my willingness to use these drugs increased ever so gradually until they became virtually useless, but still left all the negative symptoms such as lack of concentration, dizziness, shortness of breath etc. Simply put, it was not a solution that would work long-term without having serious risks on my health and a high likelihood of developing addictions, or as a minimum a very unhealthy reliance.

When I was finally discharged, I approached my doctor to start developing sustainable longer-term solutions. I was fortunate enough to have access to some incredible medical physicians who were contemporary, understood military issues, were open minded and solution driven. After numerous discussions, the topic of medicinal cannabis was raised in its capacity as a possible solution for chronic pain. This was a bit of a shock to me after having come from a no tolerance community and having been directly responsible for kicking many people out of the Army for their use of recreational cannabis. I would be lying if I also said I was not worried about the judgement of my peers who were currently serving in the Defence force at the time, and would have very little first-hand knowledge in this space.

In any case, there wasn’t a great deal of other alternatives on the plate. I had already had all the nerves fried out of my spine and neck with very little success, with a larger number of surgeries on the way. I really didn’t have anything to lose.

I invested significant research to see if medicinal cannabis had helped other Veterans in similar situations, and it had. Veterans can be very ‘clicky’ sometimes and we often like to speak to our own before we make decisions. I was fortunate to have discussions with a large number of veterans who had also gone the black-market route, utilising recreational cannabis for its pain killing properties. Some of these individuals had experienced remarkable improvements in their physical and mental health as a result of their actions. I had seen the improvements from the outside looking in.

As it was, I was the first to go through the legal prescription process which was a little clunky due to the immaturity of the medicinal cannabis industry at the time, overshadowed by a clunky government legal approval system (TGA). But once through, I was blessed with a solution that not only turned my pain off (yes, off) but also allowed me to stay more coherent, sleep through an entire night (I couldn’t remember the last time I had done that), and generally feel better all round. This was life changing to say the least. My relationships started improving, my moods and confidence improved, and I started feeling younger again. It was a significant jump in the right direction.

The problems I had though was that it was exceptionally expensive ($400 per month, AUD), it tasted disgusting (I can deal with that) and was a difficult administration process to navigate to get there. Another issue was the type of medication one might take; a quick slip of the lips and an individual might agree to a THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol) & CBD (Cannabidiol) solution as opposed to a CBD only solution, resulting in a loss of one’s driving licence. The most difficult thing was trying to have it accepted by the Department of Veteran’s Affairs who can be a very slow-moving and bureaucratic beast.

My team and I decided that something needed to be done. We needed to:

  • A. Educate other veterans about how effective this was as a solution
  • B. Warn others about the dangers associated with Codeine, Opiate and Alcohol
  • C. Provide a platform for veterans to become better educated
  • D. Provide a means for veterans to start their journey to sourcing legally approved medicinal cannabis product
  • E. Provide the best chance for veterans to have their prescriptions subsidised by the Department of Veterans Affairs
  • F. Most importantly, remove the victim persona that follows the veteran community like a plague

After a significant amount of searching, we finally met the team at MedReleaf Australia who were willing to team up with us in developing a platform that would make the product better understood, and easier to source (pending the suitability for the individual). In doing so a partnership was formed. We had also met some not so desirable companies in our journey that were clearly focused on using veterans for the sole purpose of making a ‘quick buck’. The MedReleaf Australia team were considered, caring and compassionate about providing a service where it will get best effect and provide care to the people that had fought on behalf of the country.

Since that time a significant amount of research has been invested into ensuring the currency of information in an industry that is currently flying by the seat of its pants. We have also implemented a ground up build of the ‘Releaf for Veterans’ platform which will enable veterans to simply start their journey by visiting a website. Simply put, the Releaf for Veterans platform will allow veterans to be provided with an alternate and easy to navigate solution if it is applicable to them.

In memory of the veterans we have served who struggle with physical and mental injuries due to their service, we have decided to launch the platform on 11th November (Remembrance Day).

I hope that it in some way this project will both practically and functionally help our community of veterans for which I am proud to have served with, and I owe so much to.

I am exceptionally proud of my team at The Eighth Mile Consulting for their professionalism, tenacity and dedication in delivering this project on time and on budget. Amazing work.

Thank you for reading.

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