Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing — by Dan Lynn
By Dan Lynn
During my MBA, I learned a simple model about how teams develop. Nearly thirty years later, it may be the thing from those classrooms I quote most often.
It's called Tuckman's model — psychologist Bruce Tuckman described it back in 1965. Every team, he found, moves through four stages: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing. First everyone is polite and careful — that's forming. Then the friction shows up: personalities clash, roles get contested, everything feels harder than it should — storming. Then the team settles: ways of working emerge, trust builds — norming. And finally it clicks, and the team produces more than the sum of its people — performing.
The reason I quote it all the time is simple: it always plays out that way. Every team I've built, joined, or advised — new company, new department, new partnership — same four stages, same order. The names are almost annoyingly cute, but the sequence is real.
Here's why knowing it matters. The storming phase feels like failure. It isn't — it's a stage. If you don't know the model, you look at a new team full of friction and conclude you hired wrong or the team is broken, and you blow it up right before it would have settled. If you do know the model, storming becomes almost reassuring: we're on schedule. Your job as a leader isn't to prevent the storm. It's to steer through it and keep everyone aboard until the norming starts.
But the most useful moment to use the model is before the storm ever arrives. With every new team, someone eventually says to me: "Wow, this is such a great team — everyone is working so well together." That's forming. Enjoy it — but recognize it for what it is. I always tell them the same thing: the storming stage is coming, and when it arrives, don't be alarmed. A team that's heard the forecast doesn't panic when the weather changes.
One more thing worth knowing: when the team changes — someone joins, someone leaves — the clock resets, at least partway. You form again. You storm again, hopefully smaller.
Four words. I've gotten more mileage out of them than almost anything else I learned in school. So the next time your new team is struggling, ask yourself: is this broken — or is this just storming?
Questions this Key Learning answers
Is conflict in a new team a sign it is failing?
Not necessarily. The author describes early friction as the “storming” stage that follows an initially polite forming period. Personalities clash, roles are contested, and work feels unusually hard. Recognizing this sequence keeps leaders from concluding too quickly that the team is broken or the wrong people were hired.
How do I prepare a new team for future conflict?
The author recommends forecasting the storm while the team is still getting along. Explain that disagreement and friction are expected stages of team development, not automatic evidence of failure. As our analysis notes, this shared explanation helps people focus on unfinished questions about roles, authority, and standards instead of treating tension as a verdict on the team.
What happens to a team when someone joins or leaves?
According to the author, a membership change resets the team’s development clock at least partway: the team forms and storms again, hopefully on a smaller scale. Our analysis suggests naming that renegotiation as normal and revisiting ownership, decision-making, and working agreements so the team can absorb the new person or adjust to the missing one.