How to Strengthen Team Relationships in the Norming Stage

As a team leader, you are expected to ensure that you build a cohesive and high-performing team.

Like in the Harry Potter series, you will need to convince and motivate the Gryffindor group members, ensure they rise to the occasion, and insist on raising the bar on team performance (every single time Slytherin folks wreak havoc).

Of course, it’s easier said than done.

Once your team moves past the ‘storming stage‘—where there are constant disagreements and clashes—they are one step closer to being the ‘dream team.’ Your job, like Harry Potter, is to implement team bonding strategies and address conflicts till the end of the project (or till you find all the Horcruxes and destroy them).

Are you ready to learn some actionable strategies that can strengthen team relationships in the norming stage? As we go along, we will also share best practices and examples. Let’s go! 🚦

Before that, here’s a quick dive into Tuckman’s model of team development.

How to Strengthen Team Relationships in the Norming Stage

Understanding Tuckman’s Stages of Group Development

Psychologist Bruce Tuckman published the Four Stages of Group Development—Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing—in 1965. Later, in the 1970s, he added a fifth stage, ‘Adjourning.’

Here’s a brief look into the five-team development stages:

Stage 1: Forming

In the forming stage, team members begin to know each other. They interact but are unsure how they’ll fit in due to the lack of team dynamics. At this stage, members discuss the team’s purpose, goals, and mission and figure out how to organize their responsibilities.

What strategies can help you in the forming stage?

Facilitate intros: Implement ice-breaking exercises and introduce each team member to build a sense of belonging
Define goals and roles: Talk about project goals to get everyone on the same page and structure the team, clarifying team roles and responsibilities

💡Pro Tip: You can use the ClickUp Meet the Team Template and other icebreaker templates to create well-organized profiles of all team members, introduce them to each other, and help them understand each other’s feelings to get comfortable.

Stage 2: Storming

The ‘storming’ stage is where the team begins to move past their comfort zone. They share ideas, voice opinions, and take the opportunity to stand out among peers. As individual personalities show up, clashes become common in the storming stage.

What strategies can help you in the storming stage?

Embrace conflicts: Turn conflicts into opportunities by addressing them and encouraging team members to focus more on solutions than problems
Establish ground rules: Set rules to maintain mutual respect regardless of the conflict. Ensure that all team members can express their perspectives

Use ClickUp Docs to create a wiki comprising all project resources. Write the ground rules, add a table of member roles and responsibilities, a list of tools and links, and more.

Stage 3: Norming

The norming stage of team development is the utopia you were looking for. 🌈 At this stage, the team collaborates toward the end goal. Each member works more efficiently as they learn to share ideas and receive feedback to improve their skills.

What strategies can help you in the norming stage?

Support team members: Ensure regular team communication by conducting one-on-one and group sessions and coaching individuals who aren’t comfortable discussing their challenges in a group
Encourage feedback: Foster constructive feedback and provide opportunities to evaluate individual and team progress

Using ClickUp Whiteboards is a great idea to enhance team collaboration. Your team can brainstorm, map ideas and strategies, and create workflows to ensure smoother team operations—all in real time.

Use ClickUp Whiteboards to brainstorm with team during norming stage — *Brainstorm with your team in real-time with ClickUp Whiteboards*

Stage 4: Performing

In the performing stage, teams work together to achieve the team goals by following the established processes. They focus on working collectively to deliver results as a team rather than individual success. As a result, collective productivity and team synergy are high in this stage.

What strategies can help you in the performing stage?

Promote shared leadership: Encourage group members to take up leadership roles
Cultivate work-life balance: As productivity is the highest at this stage, foster work-life balance to avoid stress and burnout

Stage 5: Adjourning

The last of the five stages of team development is adjourning—where the project ends. The members experience a bittersweet feeling of satisfaction and mourning as they separate. They focus on the team’s performance, upcoming projects, and their future teams.

What strategies can help you in the adjourning stage?

Check deliverables: Make sure everything’s completed. Discuss the status of deliverables with members and prepare any additional info required by stakeholders
Talk about uncertainty: Help team members overcome the anxiety of the future. Support them and offer resources to navigate the transition

By the time you reach the norming stage of team development after effectively navigating the storming phase, you’ve already built a solid team foundation. However, it is critical to focus on resolving the challenges of the norming stage to ensure high productivity and team cohesion.

Challenges in the Norming Stage

Here are the common norming stage challenges you must tackle to maintain the perfect team harmony👇

Adhering to norms

Norms set the standards for team decorum. But, if not followed correctly, teams slide into the storming stage again. The worst case? Your team might collapse altogether.

When the team’s rules collapsed, the team itself dismembered, sense collapsed, and the disaster unfolded. In this view, rules are important for protecting collective action.

Karl Weick, American organizational theorist

So, what are the challenges faced when adhering to team rules?

Lack of clarity: Team members fail to understand what’s expected of them
Internal Conflicts: Personality clashes and conflicts due to competing individual goals can disrupt the team’s workflow
Forgetting the rules: Teams may find it difficult to put the norms into practice effectively

How do you overcome these challenges of adhering to team norms?

Have written ground rules: Writing down team norms in a centralized, easy-to-access platform clarifies team expectations and helps team members follow them
Build trust: Remind team members of their purpose and goals. It helps enhance feelings of trust, which in turn increases job satisfaction
Evaluate progress: Set aside 30 minutes every month or 15 minutes weekly to discuss how well your team is upholding the norms. One way to do this is to create a simple scorecard using ClickUp Brain, an AI assistant, that helps you do this easily. Then, you can ask your team to rate themselves on how well they follow the rules

Use ClickUp Brain to create team rules — *Create team rules, scorecards, and more using ClickUp Brain*

Use ClickUp’s Project Management Tool to establish team rules. You can create a team rule book using ClickUp Docs and track your team’s progress with ClickUp Dashboards.

Balancing individual and team goals

Team members have individual goals and priorities, which may clash with the team’s goals, leading to unexpected conflicts.

Moreover, working in teams can be demanding and exhausting, especially if the workload is unbalanced. Over time, this can result in a feeling of demotivation.

Here’s how you can overcome this challenge in the norming stage of group development:

Align individual goals with team goals: Create individual goals that align with the team’s mission and strategic objectives. You can use ClickUp Goals to set individual and team SMART objectives, track project timelines, and team tasks, and progress on targets🎯
Encourage open communication: Allow your team to talk about their individual goals. Leverage team communication apps to create a central space where team members can discuss, collaborate, and communicate in real-time
Balance workloads: Pay attention to individual workloads. Ensure that nobody faces burnout. Plus, encourage team members to support each other to achieve individual goals along with team goals

Use ClickUp Goals to set team objectives — *Set and track team goals and objectives with ClickUp Goals*

💡 Pro Tip: Leverage ClickUp’s Resource Management to visualize resources at a glance. You can use the workload view to plan and manage capacity.

Maintaining motivation

Teams may get too comfortable in the norming stage of team development and lose focus on achieving the goal. Teams can also stagnate if they hit goals consistently but don’t outperform them. So, motivating teams in the norming stage can be challenging.

Here are a few ways to keep your team motivated:

Celebrate wins: Recognize team efforts and achievements to engage members. According to Gallup, employees who receive recognition are 20x more likely to be engaged than employees who don’t
Check-in every day: Check in with your team members daily to assess their progress. Discuss their challenges and career goals and guide them to perform better
Address conflicts early: Communicate with team members as soon as conflicts arise so you can identify the problem and resolve it without delay

You can use ClickUp Chat to communicate with your team in real-time. It helps you share resources and project updates, resolve conflicts, and discuss action items as and when needed.

Communicate and resolve conflicts in real time with ClickUp Chat — *Communicate and resolve conflicts in real-time with ClickUp Chat*

Best Practices to Strengthen Team Relationships in the Norming Stage

Now that you know the challenges of the norming stage, let’s discuss a few best practices you can implement to ensure strong team relationships.

Foster open communication

Set communication goals at the very onset of the team development process. Maintain transparency by creating a solid communication plan wherein you mention the modes of communication, objectives, stakeholders, communication frequency, tools, and more.

Leverage the ClickUp Team Communication and Meeting Matrix Template to plan your regular team meetings. You can define member roles and responsibilities, set guidelines for check-ins, and create project timelines to ensure everything’s on track.

Download This Template

💡 Pro Tip: Also, Use communication plan templates to establish how and when team members must communicate. You can try the ClickUp Communication Plan Template to improve your external and internal communications. This template helps you set up communication strategies and measure the success of your communication efforts.

Conduct team-building activities

If you can laugh together, you can work together.

Robert Orben, American writer and comedian

Fun team-building activities can help team members bond with one another.

Here are a few activities and games you can try:

Virtual parties: If you’ve got a remote team, host online parties to recognize members’ achievements. You can play quizzes, chat, talk about members’ hobbies, their favorite travel destinations and food, and more
Competitions: Energize teams by hosting competitions that enhance their creativity and problem-solving. You can pair up members and ask them to create project-related goals or rules within a specified time. The pair that finishes early wins🥇
What do we have in common: This game works best for larger teams. Host it virtually or in person, create small groups, and ask team members to find out what the members within each group have in common—books, music, ice cream flavors, and more

Reinforce norms and standards

As mentioned above, team members can quickly forget the team norms.

So, what can you do to reinforce them in the norming stage?

Make the rules visible: Don’t just write the rules in a central space; highlight them during meetings. For instance, if you host a Zoom meeting, highlight the rules on each member’s screens. You can also create icons that represent the norms and flash them on member’s screens
Read the norms: At the start of every meeting, read aloud the team norms to help members recall what they should abide by. It reinstates engagement, trust, and purpose
Highlight norms in the context of feedback: When providing feedback, mention norms as a reminder. For instance, if ‘open communication’ is a norm, mention it when asking specific members to speak up during meetings

By reinforcing norms, you not only build a high-performing team but also maintain high productivity throughout the stages.

Try ClickUp—Your Key to Team Success

Like it or not, your teams must go through all the stages of group development to become high-performing teams. You need to lead them tactfully through each stage. But what’s most important is maintaining focus and motivation through the norming stage of team development to reach the “You’ve made it!’ phase.

ClickUp can help you build high-performing teams effectively.

ClickUp’s productivity tool streamlines goals, communication, and processes. It helps you plan and implement detailed communication, manage resources, balance workloads, address conflicts early, establish norms centrally, track progress, and whatnot.

In short, ClickUp helps manage group dynamics seamlessly.

So, if you want to see what more ClickUp can do, sign up for free now!