Project teams face challenges on their way to being high performing teams. During the gelling process, often referred to as the storming-to-norming transition, relationships are tested before the social lubrication of trust is in place. The generous latitude that enables effective communication can easily turn on a single word, intentionally or unintentionally, and send the team sliding back to storming again.

During the storming stage it is not uncommon to witness behavior that is closed and protective. Storming is a vulnerable time for the team members. Although getting comfortable with vulnerability is exactly what is needed to move the team to the next stage, what is often demonstrated is exactly the opposite. Vulnerability is scary and uncomfortable but a requirement for building trust. (See Vulnerability-Based Trust).

When I first started working with teams, indications of this condition were not readily apparent until I started listening for the verbal signs of casual absolutes between team members that demonstrated closed positions. Careful interpretation separated the reassuring absolutes that build trust from the more convenient absolutes that seek to eliminate the uncomfortable grey areas. Since then, I deliberately look and listen for absolutes and demands and I instinctively assess the reality of these absolutes.

When my daughters were young, they spoke in absolutes. They would make comments like, “You are always golfing.” “You never let us stay up late.” “Everybody’s mad at me.” “Nobody cares what I think.” This type of emotionally laden language is understandable in small children because their sense of time and breadth of perspective are limited. To a child, today is the same as all time and one person is the same as everyone. This limited perspective is a product of their lack of life experience, coupled with the belief that the world revolves around them. They are, in essence, in the forming and storming stages of their team called “family.”

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