News organizations can be workplaces of rapid growth, and staff often adapt quickly to meet many demands. How can teams learn to work better together over time?

As an independent news outlet, The Baltimore Banner grew from a staff of about 12 to more than 80 hires in just a few years. Andrea McDaniels joined the Banner as managing editor in 2021 after spending two decades at the Baltimore Sun as a reporter and editor.

Last year, she and a small group of Baltimore Banner staff participated in an API-hosted Designing Meetings for Equity bootcamp led by the National Equity Project. McDaniels — who leads editorial and hiring efforts — said this experience bolsters her belief that bringing more equitable processes into the newsroom needs to be deliberate.

One of the frameworks covered in the bootcamp was the Stages of Team Development created by Bruce Tuckman in the 1960s, which describes how groups come together, figure out ways of working together and execute on the work. These stages are:

  • Forming: Team members get to know one another and get acclimated to the work
  • Storming: Team members learn how to manage conflict and work together
  • Norming: Team members are more comfortable with one another and may be more open to receiving constructive feedback or asking for help with tasks
  • Performing: Teams are able to optimize productivity, have established workflows and make significant progress toward goals
  • Adjourning: Teams take time time to reflect, celebrate wins and transition to the next project

“When we started off, I was doing most of the talking, leading and figuring out what people’s communication style is,” McDaniels said about their early forming days.

She also reflected on what it was like to “storm” — figuring out what the reporters need from her as a leader and how she can convey her needs to colleagues.

“Maybe it can be a little uncomfortable at first because you’re not agreeing, but then you come to a point when you realize what each side needs,” she said. “Now we’re in more of a fine-tuning stage, trying to figure out where we are and what we need to do to get better.”

Moving from “I” to “we”

To McDaniels, encouraging people to use their voice — especially those who aren’t used to being “at the table” in meetings — is important for a developing work culture.

NEP adapted the Stages of Team Development to show when team members are likely to start shifting their thinking from “I” to “we” — when meaningful collaboration starts — to a more complex stage of “equity-focused work,” where the team members’ experiences are prioritized and optimized.

News organizations often strive for these “equity-focused work” stages: when teams are resilient and flexible, and the communities we serve also benefit from more equitable outcomes.

Erik Fermín is NEP’s senior equity leadership consultant who co-led the “Designing and Facilitating Meetings for Equity” training. He noted that leaders can better anticipate and respond to the group’s evolving needs by considering where individuals are on the spectrum of moving from “I” to “we.”

“When we are leading groups of people, we need to remember they do not start out as a team. They may have been assigned similar work, they may all be working on a project together, but becoming a team is a developmental process,” he said. “Understanding these developmental stages helps leaders recognize that early conflicts or hesitation are normal parts of team formation, not problems to be solved.”

Fermín said this awareness allows leaders to adjust their support and intervention strategies appropriately — whether that’s providing more structure during the forming stage, facilitating productive conflict resolution during storming, helping to establish community agreements during norming, or stepping back to let team members lead while performing.

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Here are some approaches that news leaders can apply along the stages:

  • Branch out for support: When a new team member starts onboarding, set up one-on-one meetings, even with colleagues outside their immediate team. News organizations can set up a buddy system, like we do at the American Press Institute, encouraging pairs to meet regularly during a new hire’s first six months or year. Practices like these can help staff develop their own support systems in your news organization.
  • First, form a charter: Starting projects can be a big lift for teams. Use this worksheet to create a team charter — a living document that helps focus objectives and outlines roles and responsibilities for team members over time. This can work for established groups in a news organization, too, like a team of digital producers or reporters working under one editor.
  • Storm together to create norms: Before starting an initiative with another department, consider the stages of team development and decide which moves or tools could help bridge different working styles. News organizations can also develop best practices and methods for creating community agreements, from using sticky notes to interactive tools that support anonymous contributions. NEP also has tips on maintaining community agreements during the collaborative process here.
  • Be flexible: One sign that your group is performing well is when team members are able to take on flexible roles and shared responsibilities. This can look like taking turns facilitating meetings or rotating note-taking duties. When these practices work well, it shows that team members know enough about one another’s work to contribute meaningfully when needed. Staff retreats can be a good place to experiment with team-building activities that encourage flexible roles and responsibilities.
  • Reflect on results: In the “adjourning” stage, teams devote time to documenting the results and sharing lessons learned as a project winds down. This is also the time to celebrate wins, discuss growth or pain points, and assess improvements for next time. Teams can be encouraged to build a practice of regular retrospective meetings or news organizations can also decide to prepare and publish an end-of-year impact report.

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