What Tuckman Gets Wrong about Teams

My team have spent over five years researching the team development field and have found a litany of research which points to a set of principles and an updated, more contemporary and data driven approach to how we can build more effective teams. We have subjected all current models to scrutiny. None of them tick all the boxes, but here I’m going to pick on Tuckman’s model as it’s probably the most commonly used method of developing a team. Yes, it’s easy to remember, which is no mean feat in a complex world, and yes it describes several common phases that teams can go through – but as we’ll see, as a model for today, it just doesn’t stack up. Here’s why.

Reason 1 – It was never meant for the workplace

Tuckman based his model on data only collected from therapy groups. These were led by a therapist without a vested interest in the outputs of that group. Unlike the leaders in our organisations, therapists have no real skin in the game and nor do they operate as part of a socio-political system, which very much defines the workplace.??Even Tuckman himself admitted

‘This literature cannot be considered truly representative of small-group developmental processes’

Its origin alone explains why six separate studies have found the model doesn’t apply to work place teams.?Not all workplace teams storm before they norm. Some norm before they storm, some perform before they norm and some even storm after they perform. Whilst Tuckman’s flow works for some workplace teams, it’s obvious the flow lacks integrity in the?workplace.

Reason 2 – It has become irrelevant for today’s teams

Tuckman did his research into his therapeutic groups in the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s and published his theory in 1965. That means his model was constructed from team data collected ninety years ago. Teams operate very differently now.

Today’s teams contain several generations with different values operating in a totally different context to the one that existed seventy years ago. Societally we are different too, we are more individualistic. Sociologists the world over point to a consistent correlation between GDP and societal individualism. Consequently we are now seeing more narcissism and psychopathy in the workplace.??A fair bit has changed in the way we now work too. Thanks to technology and digitalisation we now have much more complexity in the workplace.

We have to move much quicker, be far more nimble, far more adaptable and far more resilient to cope with todays’ VUCA world.??A lot of new thinking has also emerged in the field. We have been introduced to the importance of: meaning and purpose; shared goals; authenticity; psychological safety, cognitive based swift trust and agile philosophies. Tuckman’s model makes no mention of any of these concepts. Consequently It misses out much that is now relevant and helpful to building effective teams.