Tuckman’s Team Development Wheel, Revisited — Part 4: The Performing Stage
After the hard work of Forming, the friction of Storming, and the commitment forged in Norming, a team can reach a rare and powerful place: Performing.
This is the stage where the team is no longer focused on becoming a team - it simply is one.
In Tuckman’s model, the Performing stage represents the point at which a team is both highly competent and highly committed. The work flows. Accountability is shared. Leadership is distributed. And the team begins operating less like a committee and more like a mini-enterprise (business unit).
Understanding the Performing Stage: When Teams Truly Arrive
A Performing team doesn’t need constant direction or reassurance. Instead, it demonstrates several defining characteristics:
Anticipates needs rather than reacting to problems
Delegates work fluidly based on strengths and capacity
Gives and receives robust, candid feedback
Surfaces “sacred cows” and challenges leadership when necessary
Learns continuously and adapts quickly
Operates with confidence, clarity, and shared ownership
These teams are comfortable questioning long-standing assumptions — not to be difficult, but to make things better. While this can feel stressful to leaders accustomed to control, it is one of the clearest signs of team maturity.
From a systems perspective, the team has achieved balance across task, process, and relationship — the core elements in sustained high performance.
What Research Tells Us About High-Performing Teams
1. Psychological Safety Is Strong — but Not Fragile: In Performing teams, psychological safety is no longer about permission to speak — it’s about expectation. Team members assume they should challenge ideas, share concerns, and push for improvement. Amy Edmondson’s research shows that elite teams don’t avoid conflict; they normalize it around learning and results.
2. Shared Leadership Replaces Hierarchy: Research from MIT and the Center for Creative Leadership highlights that high-performing teams distribute leadership dynamically. Influence shifts based on expertise, not title. Performing teams don’t wait for approval to act — they consult, align, and move.
3. Continuous Improvement Becomes Cultural: Performing teams naturally adopt continuous improvement behaviors:
Testing assumptions
Reviewing performance data
Iterating processes
Seeking customer feedback
Practicing Lean, Agile, Six Sigma and Total Quality Management processes
They see themselves as stewards of outcomes, not task completers.
4. Identity Expands Beyond the Team: High-performing teams maintain strong internal bonds and healthy external relationships. They collaborate across silos, engage customers directly, and represent the organization with confidence.
The Coach’s Role in the Performing Stage: Empower, Don’t Hover
The greatest risk at this stage is not underperformance — it’s interference.
The coach now operates primarily in an Empowering role:
Delegating authority and decision-making
Connecting the team with other groups and resources
Offering feedback only when requested
Attending meetings as a guest, not a driver
Introducing new challenges rather than solving problems
Often, the healthiest move for a coach is to take on a new team — while maintaining a light-touch connection to the performing one. This allows both the coach and the team to continue growing without reverting to dependency.
Strategies for Sustaining the Team in the Performing Stage
1. Resist the Urge to Supervise: High-performing teams don’t need oversight; they need trust. Avoid interpreting independence as disengagement.
2. Introduce New Challenges Regularly: Performing teams need stretch goals to stay sharp:
New initiatives
Cross-functional projects
External partnerships
Complex problems without clear solutions
Encourage the team to operate beyond traditional silos.
3. Treat the Team as the Experts They Are: Utilize their ideas. Implement their recommendations. Ask for their analysis. The fastest way to erode performance is to ignore the insights of highly capable people.
4. Rotate Roles Intentionally: Even at high performance, role rotation matters. It builds bench strength, prevents burnout, and ensures no single individual becomes indispensable.
5. Let the Team Handle Adversity: Whether it’s conflict, pressure, or onboarding new members, remind the team: You already have the skills and will to solve this. This reinforces confidence and resilience.
6. Make Progress Visible: Provide specific feedback that highlights:
Measurable gains
Process improvements
Cultural shifts
Business impact
Recognition at this stage fuels pride and momentum.
7. Create Platforms for Sharing Their Work: Encourage teams to present:
Continuous improvement efforts
Lessons learned
Results and outcomes
These presentations reinforce mastery and inspire others.
A Critical Truth: Performing Is Not Permanent
No team stays in Performing forever. Changes in membership, leadership, scope, or environment will disrupt equilibrium. This often puts them back at the beginning of the cycle - at Forming.
What distinguishes high-performing teams is not permanence — but speed of recovery and speed in which they move through the stages again (yes, they have to go through all the stages again!).
They recognize regression early, revisit their charter and norms, and move intentionally through the earlier stages to return to Performing faster and stronger.
Performing Is a Capability, Not a Destination
The Performing stage is not the end of team development — it is proof that the work was worth it.
These teams challenge leaders, elevate standards, and create value far beyond their original mandate. They don’t need to be controlled; they need to be trusted, stretched, and respected.
When leaders learn to let go at the right time, teams don’t fall apart. They rise.
This concludes our four-part exploration of Tuckman’s Team Development Wheel. Whether you are launching a new team, guiding one through conflict, or sustaining high performance, understanding these stages — and your role in each — is one of the most powerful leadership skills you can develop.
