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Building a strong team is one of the most important steps in building and managing a long-term business. Before becoming a truly cohesive team, the team goes through 4 stages of development, overcoming internal contradictions and disagreements. Team development largely depends on the owner, managers and HR-specialist work.

Team development stages

At the beginning of teamwork, employees are encouraged and focused on the result. But already in the second stage of team development there are disputes and disagreements. To overcome possible difficulties quickly, not only the manager, but also the employees themselves must be ready for them. Tell them in advance about the possible difficulties and immediately agree on how to solve them.

There are 4 stages of personnel development

Stage 1: Forming a team and starting to work together.

At the first stage, when the team is being formed, they discuss the charter, regulate the decision making procedure, prescribe roles for each team member and expectations from his or her work.

At this stage, employees are emotionally upbeat, anticipate future success, and are optimistic. Everyone feels pride, a certain sense of being chosen. On the other hand, the transition from individual to team work is a certain stress. People feel anxiety, fear and doubts about the success of the idea.

In order for the work to be coherent, it is important to refer to the regulations and act according to the established rules, use information notes on meetings and reporting.

At this stage, follow these guidelines:

• Clearly define each employee’s role and make sure they understand it.
• Do not make important decisions on your own.
• Redistribute roles among team members for greater efficiency.
• Provide internal training on staff development.
• Create team rules of conduct and communicate them to each employee.

The task of the team leader is to create an effective interaction between all team members, provide a common information field and respect the opinions of employees.

Stage 2: Conflicts and confrontations.

At this stage, team members may find that their task is different from what they originally imagined. Or that the task is more complex than they expected. Some worry about lack of professional development or awareness of lack of experience. This leads them to doubt the need for the whole project and their involvement in it.

The following problems arise in a team:

• Subordinates rely only on their experience and sabotage all principles of cooperation.
• There are disputes and conflicts within the team.
• Competition appears.
• The team declares the initial goals unattainable and complains about the high load.

The manager must make every effort to overcome this stage as soon as possible, before conflicts affect the project.

Stage 3: Normalization.

In the third stage there comes a kind of “humility”. The employees accept the format of the team game, follow the established rules and move towards the goal. At this moment the team members start to feel that working together brings results.

The following skills are developed:

• Expression of constructive criticism.
• Striving for mutual understanding.
• Friendly behaviour in meetings.
• Confidence in each other.
• A sense of community and team spirit.

It is important that the manager provides information about the development and achievements of the project. If this does not happen, the team rolls back to the second stage.

Stage 4. Work at full capacity.

This is the stage where the team easily identifies and fixes problems.

Employee development occurs in several directions:

• Behavior changes in a positive direction – less sharp and categorical.
• Intermediate results are achieved before the deadlines are set.
• Employees support and train each other.

Employee development tools

The organization of employee development in a company should take place in two planes: professional and personal. Accordingly, goals for employee development are set separately.

As a rule, an instrument of employee development in the professional sphere is additional training. It can be external or internal, take place in different formats, but always develops competences for the position held or for the perspective of career growth.