Business Building Blocks Podcast · Kristina Schmitt

Mastering Stages of Team Development

·31 min·2 clips

Christina reveals how unclear dishwashing expectations can derail a team before it even starts.

Host Christina Schmidt, a leadership and organizational wellness coach, explains the four classic stages of team development and how leaders should guide their teams through each one. She connects this framework to her previous episode on individual learning and delegation, emphasizing its practical application for entrepreneurs and managers. The core model consists of forming, storming, norming, and performing, with a potential fifth stage called adjourning. The forming stage occurs when a team first comes together and requires leaders to set clear expectations and define roles. Christina uses the analogy of roommates defining "doing the dishes" to illustrate how unspoken assumptions create conflict. She recommends tools like the "Working Genius" assessment to clarify team members' strengths and preferred working styles early on. In storming, inevitable conflicts and personality clashes emerge as the team begins real work, moving beyond initial politeness. Leaders must facilitate direct conversations to resolve misunderstandings and adjust team norms, preventing teams from getting stuck in this phase. The norming stage is a transition where the team starts to function independently, and leaders should encourage members to resolve conflicts on their own. Christina suggests leaders act as coaches, asking guiding questions and occasionally observing meetings as a "fly on the wall." Performing is the goal, where the team operates smoothly and handles most issues subconsciously, though leaders must still provide individual coaching and strategic check-ins to avoid abdication. She stresses that adding a new member requires the team to briefly return to the forming stage to onboard that person properly. A key insight is that leaders should always return to the forming stage's principles if a team is struggling, as foundational clarity prevents prolonged storming. Christina argues that conflict is healthy and necessary, positioning it on a continuum between destructive "malicious" behavior and ineffective "pretend niceness." She reveals that the forming stage demands the most time from a leader, similar to onboarding a new employee, but this investment makes subsequent stages easier. The adjourning stage involves both practical tasks like documentation and emotional support for team members processing the change or conclusion of a project. The episode is conversational and instructional, blending personal anecdotes with structured leadership advice. Christina's tone is supportive and practical, focusing on actionable steps rather than abstract theory. This episode is ideal for new managers, team leaders, or entrepreneurs forming a team who want a clear framework to diagnose and improve team dynamics. Listeners seeking deep, academic theory or those who already extensively use this specific team development model might find the content too foundational.

As heard by us

A practical look at the forming stage, with leadership framed as structure, coaching, and follow-through.

The episode stays with the forming stage and treats it as plain work. Christina keeps the advice concrete: leaders set when the team meets, decide how projects are tracked, and keep one-on-one check-ins going alongside group coordination.

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Why you'd press play

Build your team in the forming stage: set how you meet, how you track work, and how you move together.

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