It's easy to be seduced into thinking that a team in the performing stage of the Tuchman lifecycle model is a joy and will remain in that stage with very little help from you. The reality is that even without transformation, a team in the performing stage can take a dip in its performance level. And let's understand why. I guess my understanding of this really grew significantly when a client of mine complained that the team that he was working in had suddenly started to feel quite miserable. Unless he explained what happened. I grew him a very simple diagram, because there are two things that a team can pay attention to.

The team compare attention to the task at hand, and it can pay attention to the relationships among team members clearly team that is performing to a high level sits in the top right hand corner. They're paying a lot of attention to the task at hand and getting a lot of work done, but they're also paying attention to their relationships. And this had been the kind of status of my clients team beforehand. But what happens when a team feels itself under significant pressure, pressure to perform pressure to meet deadlines, pressure to do more and more and more work? Well, at some point, the team doesn't have enough time and energy to devote to the relationships side, because he's too focused on the task side. It's a state that I call slave driving because it feels like you're chained to a bench in a Roman galley.

And you're required to row faster and faster by the chap who is beating the drum louder and faster and faster, faster and faster and faster and faster and faster. Consequently, relationship starts to break down. And people feel uncomfortable with the team dynamic. It's like there is nothing else but the work. Consequently, the fix to this is to recognize that it's happened. And then to take steps to re energize the relationship building side of the team dynamic.

Quite often, the easiest way to do that is to take a pause in the work for half a day or even a day and do something as a team to rebuild those relationships. But another equally unfortunate thing can happen to a team that starts off performing very well, which is that the workload eases off. Now, we know that there are peaks and troughs in work and so a temporary easing of workload is a great time for the team to recover and deal with some of its administration catch up with some of its backlog but If that lol in the workload persists for too long, then people will start to get bored. And when people start to get bored, they start to make mischief. The team is no longer productive. It starts navel gazing.

It starts looking inwards and moaning about the organization and moaning about the leadership and moaning about their colleagues. And it's important to stop this because if that carries on for too long, then the moaning about the organization and the moaning about the leadership and the moaning about the colleagues can start to poison relationships. And now the one thing that you've got left which is relationships starts to get damaged. And as that starts to get damaged, you find that the team becomes rudderless. It has no direction. There is not enough work for to do, the relationships are strong, and you're almost back to square one.

So if you find your team lacking in work for too long a period It's time to give them some work to do. Ideally, you want to give them worthwhile valuable work. But if there isn't any worthwhile valuable work, then you need to find something for them to do take them out and do some work for charity, or pure administrative or maintenance tasks, whatever it takes to keep people busy. Because I have a simple rule that helps new managers to understand what is going on in the workplace. Which is that if you don't understand what's going on in the workplace, ask yourself this. How would you interpret the same behaviors?

If instead of being amongst your co workers, they were amongst more children's in the playground? What happens when children get bored? They kick off mischief. What happens when adults get bored, bored, they kick off and they make mischief. It's just a different kind of mystery. So what are my four tips for good team maintenance?

The first is to be sensitive to changes in the dynamic. And the second is having been sensitive to those changes, make sure that you get the right balance of tasks and relationships. My third tip is to recognize that even a high performing team will get new joiners from time to time. So bring them in, well, convene a welcoming committee find interesting things for them to do make sure that they have an energizing first week or two. give them plenty of opportunities to learn and to build relationships. And finally, my fourth tip, is to recognize that every now and then gaps will appear in your team people may leave may change their focus or additional tasks may be necessary for the team.

Proactively fill those gaps so that they don't start to cause dissent. And start to bring the team back to the storming phase. For very simple tips for a very complex situation, maintaining the high performance that you've generated in your team