Practical Coach: Management Skills for Everyday Life, The

The Team Life Cycle

Failing organizations are usually over-managed and under-led.

—Warren Bennis

Teams, regardless of their task, duration, or member characteristics, tend to go through predictable stages of development.^[65] Researchers Jessica Lipnack and Jeffrey Stamps explain: “A team is first and foremost a process: It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. No team springs to life full-blown and none lives forever. Words such as conception, gestation, birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, midlife crisis, and old age all apply to a team's life.”^[66]

Each stage presents team members with particular challenges to be overcome and opportunities to grow. Some teams move slowly and tediously through the various stages, struggling to surmount ...