Gerunding Your Way to Teamwork

Link to December 10 Open Forum article, "The Most Important Factor in Business Begins with 'P'".

As in "people".

Excerpt: Sociologists have a series of terms for what teams (or any work group) go through en route to operating effectively. Forming, storming, norming and then performing are the words that describe these steps.

· Forming is the stage in which each person stakes out what role they would prefer to play, or not play in the team’s efforts....

· Storming is the process by which these conflicts are worked out....

· Norming is agreeing on a set of behavioral norms—rules, if you will—about how the members of the team will work together, interact and behave.

· Performing is what people do when they work together collaboratively to achieve more as a unit than they could have individually.