Have you ever been part of a team where everything you did as a team seemed to flow in the same direction, navigating difference was effortless and you seemed to meet or better still exceed expectations? Chances are you were part of a highly effective team or as the Tuckman model describes ‘a performing team’.
In Tuckman’s model he described a series of stages a team goes through to reach performing and then adjourn. For the large part of my career I recognise the high performing teams I was lucky enough to be a part of because of the adjourning stage. More specifically the feeling of loss or grieving for the team when ir adjourned or I left.
Now you may be questioning the value of knowning that you were part of a high performing team in hindsight, and that is a reasonable question. However if you take a ‘future back’ approach as recommended by Peter Hawkins, it is possible to use team coaching to create a compelling vision for a team by getting the individuals to imagine what it would be like leaving such a performing team and then work backwards through the step that arrive at thatvision.