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Teaming Up Through Conversational Intelligence

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

—MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

In 1965, psychologist Bruce Tuckman, then a professor at Rutgers University and now head of the Academic Learning Lab at Ohio State University, introduced a theory about the developmental sequence of small groups. At the time, he proposed a very innovative model that has become the basis for almost all team and relationship development today. His model refers to four stages of team development: forming, storming, norming, and performing. Team members progress through these four stages as they learn to become high-performing, collaborative colleagues.

The Forming Stage

Tuckman asserts that in the

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