A matter of 'Storming' - 24 days to go

We had a row this weekend. It was about how we were going to get our bikes back from Venice. Interesting I thought, after spending so much time together how we can still get all bent out of shape by something so trivial? And the answer, well I think we’re probably still “Storming”. Allow me to elucidate.

I thought that when a bunch of guys came together to do something like cycle to Venice; a strong cohesive team would quickly form. Well I was wrong; initially we were simply a group who shared a common purpose. Rather like being in a queue for a cash point machine; you all have a common objective, you’re prepared to follow a few rules and conventions so others around you don’t get upset, you might even have a nice chat to pass the time - but clearly you’re not in what I would call a team.

With cycling it’s possible to continue as a ‘group’ if that’s what you want, after all road biking’s a pretty individual business. Providing you’re organised enough to meet up in the morning, getting to the destination is mostly a matter of personal fitness - you don’t really need others to grind out the miles. It’s not until we started getting into each others’ motives, started having to support each other at the end of a 150 mile ride and began to share the work of planning and organising the trip that I noticed a move from ‘Group’ to ‘Team’.

In my dark and mysterious world of management consulting, there’s a model that helps understand the development of teams. A psychologist called Tuckman recognised that teams go through four stages of development; forming, storming, norming, and performing. I can’t help wondering what Mr. Tuckman might make of us, let’s see…

Step one was pretty straight forward, Graham, Chris and I were sitting in the pub one evening reminiscing about Land’s end to John O’Groats. We decided it would be fun to do something similar. We thought a mutual friend, Jeremy might be interested, he was and several curries later we had a plan to go to Venice, voilà we were formed!

The big picture is that we had to work through whether we all wanted enough of the same things to make the trip viable and enjoyable. It emerged that we all seem to share a central need for a big physical and mental challenge. We all have other requirements of course; ranging from sightseeing, through drinking wine to creating a different focus in life – but nothing so incompatible to raise the likelihood of the thing falling apart. Then comes the storming, which if you want to develop a sense of team, you leave out at your peril. Storming is about drinking beer, challenge and conflict. Hence, our row! It was actually quite tough to get a working set of objectives and agreement on who would do what with regard to planning and organisation. As we wrestle with these agreements, my sense of comfort around being in a team increases.

During norming the objectives and agreements become a working reality, you find ways of coping with people’s eccentric behaviours; Chris going off on a political rant every time we go past an election poster, Graham’s determination to keep wearing the most revolting pair of see-through shorts known to man, Jeremy’s inability to communicate with any woman under the age of 50 or his remarkable views on quantitative easing. Then there are the problems and frustrations caused by bad or missing equipment, there’s agreeing to take on each others’ tasks when you’re simply over stretched, perhaps a question over someone’s fitness or motivation. Gradually as we work through these trials, our communication improves and consensus and cooperation becomes the central theme and we start to perform as a team.

Last Sunday saw the 9th annual running of the Hairy Legs Challenge, a local competition consisting for a 5k run a 20k mountain bike ride and another 5k run. Whilst we’ve all endured this ritual torture, this year only Chris and Jeremy chose to participate. To save our comrades legs for the trials of the following day we agreed we should keep Saturday’s ride to a gentle 100 miler. Winchester for breakfast at the excellent Café Monde returning via, you guessed it, Overton! Kingsclere and Newbury.