Linda Dawson is IASB director of editorial services and Journal editor.
It's your first meeting with new board members after the election. Different faces are seated at the board table. Banter before the meeting has been a little more cautious, maybe even a little stilted. Everyone seems to be on best behavior, very polite, like they would be meeting prospective in-laws or having the new pastor over for dinner.
Your board used to joke before the meetings and catch up on families. Or maybe the opposite was true: you had distinct factions in the previous board and relations were always strained. Board members only talked to certain other board members before the meeting with very little fraternizing between cliques. Now even those conversations are cautious.
What happened? Whichever scenario comes close to describing your board, rest assured that the situation you find yourself in is not unusual. You haven't entered "The Twilight Zone," you're in the initial stage of building a new board/superintendent team.
Tuckman's theory
In 1965, psychologist and researcher of team dynamics Bruce W. Tuckman published an article in Psychological Bulletin, "Developmental sequence in small groups." It was here that he first identified the four stages that he asserts every small group goes through as it comes together and learns (or not) to work as a team.
Tuckman identified these four stages as:
Tuckman believes all of these stages are inevitable and will occur over time. However, the amount of time each small group spends in each stage can vary greatly, depending on their commitment to the process of team building and how essential their cooperation is to the ultimate survival of the group.
Take for example, the development of teams of bomber crews in World War II, an example offered by Strategos Inc.
B-17 and B-24 bombers each carried teams of 10 men, and each of those men had a specific, vital duty to perform during a bombing mission. They trained together for more than a year before they went on their first run … living together, eating together and working together. Why?
Because the Army Air Force recognized the value of teamwork, and the only way to bring together a heterogeneous group of fliers who would perform with the precision and oneness needed was to give them the time to bond on a personal level. Their lives depended on their willingness to accept their differences and work together.
While your life as a school board member may not depend on accepting differences and functioning as a team, the progress your district makes may depend on it.
So, let's look at the four stages individually and see how your life as a board member and the success of your district could be enhanced by recognizing and working through the stages that lead to a high performing team.
Forming
This initial stage in team building begins the morning after the election. Once the winners are declared, your board will know if incumbents have retained their seats or if someone new will take a board seat. Or, if the incumbent chose not to run, you already expected a new face on the board … you just weren't sure which face it would be.
Whatever the case, eight people (seven board members and the superintendent) will come together at that first organizational meeting to form a new group. This is the meeting, as described above, when board members and administrators are usually on their best behavior. They're trying to "feel" their way into a new relationship.
Board members, both new and old, may arrive at this meeting focused on "self." New board members wonder if their personal skills and knowledge will be recognized and appreciated. Incumbent board members may be worried about retaining their position and/or status on the board.
Things can go one of two ways during an initial board meeting. Incumbents can be welcoming and model the behaviors they have learned about being an effective board member. Or they can exhibit territorial behaviors … unwelcoming, turf-defending, "we've always done it this way, why would we change just for you" and acting suspicious of the new board members.
A board that is welcoming and helps new members get acclimated will spend less time in this "forming" stage, which Strategos estimates lasts a few days to a few weeks. In this stage, board members are not yet ready to build the trust necessary for team building.
Storming
Once board members know a little more about each other, initial politeness will begin to fall off and dissension is likely to take its place. Continuing board members may become territorial; new board members may become impatient with the learning curve. They don't call it "storming" for nothing!
While disagreements over competing ideas and challenges to the status quo are inevitable, they need not turn personal or become a precursor to knock-down, drag-out fights at every meeting over every issue.
Those who shy away from controversy (let's call them the "peace at all costs" folks) may be the most upset by this stage of team development, which may last one or two months … or more. They just want it to be over. But as long as the contentiousness is controlled, it can be a very constructive phase for a small group.
Acknowledging that you have differences now and that you may have differences in the future, as well as finding a way to deal with those differences, will allow the board to learn how to work through conflict in a productive, instead of destructive, way.
Working through the "storming" stage will build tolerance and understanding. Allowing differences to be divisive can doom the new team to failure.
Norming
The team should emerge from its "storming" stage into a more comfortable working arrangement. "Norming" is where trust really begins to solidify within the group and attention shifts to the actual work that needs to be accomplished.
The arrival in "norming" means the old and new board members have reached agreements on how they will work together. These agreements are the rules, values, methods, tools and even some taboos that emerge from "storming."
Some boards codify these agreements in policy or other written documents. Others have unwritten but understood agreements. The best way to make certain that everyone is on the same page is to have things written somewhere.
According to Strategos Inc., during the "norming" phase, board members will "become increasingly adept at problem solving" and "manage their time and their quality with growing competence, confidence and independence."
The "norming" stage generally lasts from four months to a year.
Performing
During this final stage, teams become effective at problem solving, reach solutions rather quickly and actually develop the ability to head off issues before they reach the problem stage.
Teams that are high performing are able to regulate themselves, have a clear idea of where they are headed and what needs to be accomplished. That does not mean, however, that they operate without dissent. But it does mean they have learned to appreciate their diversity of opinions and work through each issue to consensus.
A board can operate in this "performing" stage indefinitely, although a change in leadership (a new superintendent) or in board makeup (whether through appointment or election) will likely shift the dynamics of the group back to the "forming" stage or possibly the "storming" stage. That's to be expected, but it does not preclude working through the various team building stages again to re-emerge as a high-performing board. But recognize that it will take time … again.
And it may take a different amount of time to get back to your peak performing level. After all, your board is different this time. That's neither good or bad … it's reality.
A fifth stage
In 1977, after more research, Tuckman actually added another stage to his team development model: adjourning and transforming. "Adjourning" is characterized by task completion and a break-up of a group. This stage has also been called "mourning."
School boards, because they may change every two years, can find themselves in this "mourning" area in that pre-election time before "forming" begins again with the addition of new board members. In that case, "mourning" needs to be acknowledged … the "old gang" is breaking up … but it can't be allowed to overshadow the "forming" that will begin a new cycle of team development.
A board that remains intact, however, can find itself not "adjourning" but "transforming" into a new level of performance.
So, are we done now?
That's a good question. Just because a board has moved through all the stages of team development does not mean that it can't regress. Often issues emerge in a community that could jerk a board back to a "storming" phase. If that is the case, then board members must look to the work they did in the initial team building phase for the rules and tools that can bring them back to "norming" and "performing" stages.
Once the board recognizes the inevitable stages of the process, the work may become easier … or maybe not. No one can say for certain that your board will work through these phases in the timeframes that have been suggested.
But the boards who work at understanding this process as well as developing their own set of board processes should find that they have a better chance to succeed in their quest to be high performing.
References
Strategos Inc., http://www.strategosinc.com/work_team_3.htm
Focus Consulting Group Inc., www.focusCgroup.com, "The Key Stages of Team Development," June 20, 2006
"Stages of Team Development (Tuckman)," http://www.12manage.com/methods_tuckman_stages_team_development.html
IASB offers new orientation, team-building help
"Every other year, most school boards gain at least one new member, and some even acquire a new majority of four of more new members. Whenever new members join the governance team, whether one or more board members or a new superintendent, it is valuable to go ‘back to the basics.'"
So begins the explanation of the work that the Illinois Association of School Boards outlines in its new "Orienting New School Board Members on the way to Becoming a High-Performing Board Team" publication.
Members of the IASB governance team, which includes staff from nearly all of the Association's departments, spent a good portion of their time in 2008 looking for ways to help board members and superintendents better understand the dynamics and importance of orientation and team building time when new faces join the board or a new superintendent is hired.
Out of this work emerged a 16-page booklet that has been mailed to all superintendents and board presidents, has been posted on the Association website at https://www.iasb.com/training/orienting.cfm and is available from field service directors, Targeting Achievement through Governance consultants and through various workshops.
The booklet is a step-by-step process that includes both items to share during the orientation process and sample agendas to guide boards as they have conversations about who they are and how they do business. In addition, it offers a list of IASB workshops and other learning opportunities that both new and veteran board members can access to continue their professional development.
"Boards have such important work to do around making certain that every child learns, being good stewards of community resources and avoiding minutia that there is little value in wasting time getting down to business," the booklet states. "A small amount of time invested in orientation and team building will allow the board to focus on its important work. Time invested is well worth the effort in terms of reduced stress on members, community confidence and the effectiveness of your school board."
Yes, working through the materials in the booklet will take time. Ideally the information in the "nuts and bolts" orientation meeting will be shared in a face-to-face meeting between the new board member(s) and the superintendent and board president.
The conversations about district identity and board processes may each take 90 minutes or so, and can be conducted either at a regularly scheduled meeting or a special meeting. Some boards may choose to have an outside facilitator help with the agenda, but the steps are outlined with key questions so that boards can have the discussions on their own.
The amount of time that a board chooses to devote to this work is up to the board. But experts, such as Strategos Inc., point out that all boards go through a process of team building that seems to have four distinct stages. Being able to work through those stages and emerge with a good working relationship builds a basis for becoming a high-performing board team.
It is the hope of IASB that these new orientation and team building materials will assist districts in this process.