Habits of a Healthy Team

Ian Miller | 03/14/2025

If you’re reading this, I’m going to assume a few things about you:

• You’re part of a team

• You want that team to be healthy

• You want to take action right now to contribute to the health of your team

I'm not planning to introduce any new groundbreaking ideas or theories. Instead, I want to offer practical, actionable steps that you can take right now to contribute to your team’s health.

Here’s my premise: the habits your team practices repeatedly will determine its health. The rhythms and routines you establish—whether intentional or incidental—will shape your team’s culture, for better or worse. 

I want to share some things I've learned over the years in my experiences on team. I also attribute a lot of what I will be sharing to Bruce Tuckman's "Four Stages of Team Development" as well as Patrick Lencioni's book "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team." 

Stage 1: Forming | Laying a Foundation of Trust

When a team first comes together, it’s like the opening chapter of a book. It sets the stage for the rest of the narrative. 

Most people have a sense of eagerness and goodwill as they get to know the others on the team. But under the surface lingers the question in everyone's minds, “Can I trust these people?” 

You don't usually start by putting all your cards on the table. You put your best foot forward and try to portray a positive image about yourself. After all, who wants to leave bad impressions? While this isn't all bad, it's hard for people to truly work together without letting the initial mask down and letting their real selves be known.  

That's why it's so crucial for teams to start by laying a foundation of vulnerability-based trust. Unlike trust that’s earned over time, this kind starts with a choice: you choose to be vulnerable, assuming your teammates have your best interests at heart. It’s a gift you give, and one that can be reinforced or broken as time goes on. 

Ideas to build trust: 

• Take time to hear each other’s life stories. This has a way of breaking down walls and cultivating empathy.

• Use Personality Assessments. Tools like DISC or Working Genius give you a shared language to understand each other and have a common language for talking about your strengths and weaknesses. 

• Prioritize Time Together: Learn together, pray together, have fun together. Shared experiences build relationships.

All of this is directly connected to love. A choice, a posture that desires the best for the rest of your team and therefore believes the best about each other, even when it's risky, even when it costs. It leads you to be vulnerable and open yourself up to this group of people that you are committing yourself to. 

And how you start out together will most likely set the trajectory for how you will end together.  

Stage 2: Storming | Engaging in Healthy Conflict 

As the honeymoon phase fades, differences emerge. Opinions clash, work styles collide, and unmet expectations lead to frustration. Welcome to the storming phase—where the rubber meets the road.

This is when it is so easy to run away from everything. To avoid the tough conversations. To react and allow your emotions to damage relationships and break trust. That's why it is so important to pursue constructive conflict—honest, vulnerable conversations where you are working together to bring resolution and find the best path forward together. It's so easy to either hold back and be passive-aggressive, or to let emotions spiral into personal attacks and fights. 

Here are a few suggestions for navigating conflict in a healthy way:

• Step away when needed. If emotions are high, take a break to let the dust settle. 

• Don’t sweep issues under the rug. Follow up and seek closure.

• Normalize Conflict by inviting and affirming open, honest discussion. Together consider how your team can be a safe place to have open dialogue and disagreement. 

• Don't be afraid to seek outside help. A third party--especially someone who has experience in working with teams and conflict--can facilitate safe spaces for working through things together. Something that I've noticed over the years is that our desire for peace (especially in our Anabaptist faith tradition) can short-circuit this process. Leaders tend to either shut down all forms of conflict, or to run away from it. 

Here's the thing. Your team will struggle to enter any of the following stages in a healthy way if you don't learn to have constructive conflict. 

Stage 3: Norming | Pursuing Commitment & Accountability

As you find a path forward together and learn what it looks like for everyone to engage, be vulnerable, and have constructive conflict, you will reach the norming stage. All the hard work is worth it! There's something about being vulnerable with each other and weathering the storm of conflict that can either destroy relationships or bring you closer together. That's why the way you navigate the storm is so important. 

You should continue to press into those conversations until you have clarity (ideally, in writing), for the following six questions (Patrick Lencioni, The Advantage):

1. Why do we exist?

   • Vision statement: The “why” that unites the team

   • Defines everything we hope to accomplish—our purpose

   • What do we do?

2. Mission statement: A one-sentence summary of what we do

   • Usually the easiest question to answer since it's the very tangible work that your team does

3. How do we behave?

   • Behavioral core values: The lifestyle we live to pursue our “why”

   • Guides team fit: Do potential members embody these values?

   • Basis for accountability: This is who we are

   • Behavior violating these values is not tolerated

4. How will we succeed?

   • Strategic anchors: Parameters for daily decision-making

   • Ensures our actions align with the mission

   • Defines how we operate to achieve success

5. Who is responsible for what?

   • Team map: Clarifies roles and responsibilities; includes organizational chart and job descriptions

6. What is most important right now?

   • Strategic plan & rallying cry: Focus for the next 12 months

   • Identifies where to invest time, energy, and resources

   • Informed by SWOT analysis:

     1. Strengths

     2. Weaknesses

     3. Opportunities

     4. Threats

Answering these six questions provide you with a team playbook. Keep this in front of your team. Review it regularly. On the team where I currently serve, this has definitely contributed to clarity and buy in. 

Regular meetings with a clear purpose are so crucial. Meetings is where your work happens as a leader. It's where people come together around a common purpose. That's why you need to define the purpose of every meeting. Use Lencioni’s “Four Meetings” framework to keep communication clear and focused.

Stage 4: Performing | Attention to Results

I want to be very clear about this stage--if you jump to the results without doing the hard work that has been articulated up to this point, you just might be creating the perfect environment for confusion, frustration, and drama. Slowing down to go through stages 1-3 together gives you the space to pull together, get clarity and ensure the whole team has been part of setting the direction and buying into where you're headed. It's rarely easy, but it is well worth the time and energy! 

In this stage, there are three questions that every healthy team member wants to know: 

1. What am I responsible for? 

2. Who am I accountable to? 

3. How am I doing?

That's why it's important to do performance reviews at least annually. It creates a space for conversations about how each person is doing. It helps take the emotion off the table since it's a rhythm that's already established. If you save these conversations only for when people aren't doing well, it puts the emotion on the table.

Maybe your team doesn't fit neatly into any one of these stages. And that's okay. But by now, you hopefully have an idea of what you can do right now to keep cultivating healthy team. Perhaps you will have to go back to the storming phase (or a version of it) to bring closure to simmering tension. Don't do it on your own. Get outside help! 

Or maybe your team seems to be at a healthy place. That's great! But make sure you have clarity in writing and have regular touch points to stay connected with your team. 

At the end of the day, teamwork is giving and taking. It's setting aside "my" for "our". And that's why teamwork is so powerful. Because we are bringing our all to the table, doing the hard work of getting clarity together, honoring each other in the process, and then giving our best to move forward together. That's where impact is multiplied.

Blessings as you do the hard work of building healthy team!