What Renovation Taught Me About Teams

My husband and I are back in the messy middle of building.

We are not a strangers to it. We completely renovated a historic home over seven years and our Alaskan home over ten, with my husband acting as contractor, doing the work he enjoyed and subbing the rest out.

And now, we’re building remotely, which is a whole new layer of complexity.

There are a lot of decisions, obstacles, differences of opinion, delays, and those pesky budget constraints.

It felt like a good time to remind myself of a few mottos I’ve learned over the years:

• Low expectations = high satisfaction (especially when it comes to time).
• Once we hit a difference of opinion, the struggle usually leads to something better.
• This is normal. Nothing is going wrong. (Helps my chaos tolerance.)
• Building tests whether the vision is strong enough to endure the friction.

It was also a reminder of what early collaboration feels like.

Two and a half years ago, I was sitting in the first small group session of a team coach training. We simultaneously experienced conflicting instructions, different interpretations of those instructions, time pressure, and competing ideas to move forward. It felt like a real slog.

But we stayed with it.

By the second meeting, we had a little more clarity. By the end of eight months, we were a well-oiled machine.

I even wondered if the confusion was engineered to catalyze a lived experience of forming and storming.

Whether it was or not, we learned.

I learned what early formation can feel like. And...

Messy beginnings don’t necessarily predict messy endings.

Tuckman’s explanation of forming, storming, norming, and then performing holds true in a lot of new groups and teams.

In forming, everyone is polite, checking each other out and seeing if they fit. Clear directive leadership can be helpful here to define goals, roles, and structure to reduce uncertainty. But that level of clarity isn’t always present, and in some cases, it’s unwelcome.

Then it morphs into storming, where conflict shows up while navigating different working styles. Side conversations begin, threats of cliques and alliances emerge. The center can’t quite hold yet due to the complexity. Frustration is almost inevitable when there’s a lack of progress or alignment.

Notice that in each of these stages, nothing has gone wrong. Nothing is broken.

It’s normal. Expected. Heck, it's developmentally appropriate when you combine multiple people, personalities, experiences, and expertise.

It takes discomfort, and maybe even rumbling (shout out to Brené Brown), to get settled in. During this stage, the group is forced to choose norms. That’s progress.

Storming doesn’t resolve into Norming automatically. It resolves with structure.

Not structural rigidity, but structural clarity.

If you’re looking for ideas, try a friction audit. As a group, name the tensions. Clarify purpose, processes, and priorities. For the teams I’ve been part of, led, or worked with, a clear, unified vision, purpose and working agreement list have been incredibly helpful.

That’s not to say you must always endure torturous chaos. You get to choose.

But if you knew on the other side it would work out, would it be worth what you’re experiencing?

Knowing yourself helps here too.

I know I’m more likely to be intolerant of these early stages when I’m overly zealous about how I see it and want it to work. My clarity suddenly feels urgent. As if I've got to get my voice out there to steer the conversation toward MY direction. And urgency interrupts my deep listening. It keeps me from hearing others’ visions. It keeps me from reconsidering whether someone has a better idea, or whether I might want to get on board for the greater good.

The ultimate prize of storming is co-creating something none of you could have build separately.

This isn’t just true about renovations and teams. It’s true in new initiatives, mergers, career transitions, relationships, and even seasons of growth.

Messy ≠ broken.

Reflection:

What feels muddy and appears broken in your world that might benefit from a friction audit before you abandon it?

How do you know if the vision is strong enough, and the trade-offs worth it, to endure this stage?