Leadership is not a straight line.
It never has been. The best leaders in the world did not rise in a clean, upward trajectory. They moved through a cycle. And the ones who understood that cycle had a massive advantage over the ones who did not.
I want to give you that advantage today.
What I am about to walk you through has been playing out in teams, marriages, careers, and organizations since the beginning of human cooperation. You have lived it. Your team members are living it right now. The difference between the leaders who guide their people through it and the leaders who lose them to it comes down to one thing: awareness.
This is the Cycle of High Performance™. Four stages. Every team passes through them. And once you see it, you cannot unsee it.
The Origin of the Four ING’s
In 1965, psychologist Bruce Tuckman published a paper called Developmental Sequence in Small Groups. His core finding: every team follows a predictable path on its way to high performance. He named the stages Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing.
I call them the Four ING’s.
Tuckman’s framework was built in a lab. I have lived it in the field, door-to-door, in the room with thousands of sales leaders, across teams that thrived and teams that fell apart. What I know is this: the cycle is real, it is inevitable, and it is happening around you all the time whether you know it or not.
Your job as a leader is not to stop the cycle. It is to navigate it.
FORMING
Orientation. Newness. The Honeymoon.
Every great team starts here. New job. New team. New season. New relationship. Everything is possibility. People are learning the ropes, getting to know each other, excited to be part of something. The energy is high. The hope is real.
Think about your first days in a new role. The first weeks of a new marriage. The first practice with a new team. That electricity is the Forming stage.
It does not last forever. It is not supposed to.
STORMING
Dissatisfaction. Newness Wears Off. Reality Sets In.
Here is where most people get blindsided.
The excitement fades. Frustration creeps in. Someone on your team starts underperforming. The new hire is not what you expected. The vision you sold conflicts with the reality they are experiencing. And somewhere in the back of their mind, a thought takes root: This is not what I signed up for.
This is the Storming stage. And it is not a sign that something went wrong. It is a sign that something normal is happening.
Within the storm, there is a critical moment.
I call it the Inflection Point.
It is a choice.
On one side: Quit. Start over. Leave. Go find the next Forming stage somewhere else.
On the other side: Keep Going. Push through to what is waiting on the other side.
Here is the truth most people miss. The majority of people who quit do it right before things turn. They bail at the Inflection Point without knowing they were one decision away from Norming.
As a leader, your responsibility is to see this moment in your people before they do. Anticipation is your edge. The more you help your team understand that storms are not a detour from the path, the more of them will choose to keep going when it matters most.
A buffalo does not run from the storm. It runs straight into it. Because the buffalo knows something the cattle do not: on the other side of the storm, calm is waiting.
Be the buffalo. Teach your team to be the buffalo.
NORMING
Resolution. Renewed Commitment. “Let’s Work This Out.”
This is where the commitment becomes real.
The people who kept going through the storm start to find their footing. Habits form. Systems click. The team stops fighting the process and starts trusting it. The work still requires effort, but the direction is no longer in question.
Think about Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. He relives the same day over and over. At first it is maddening. But gradually, he uses the repetition. He gets better. He becomes, day by day, the best version of himself.
The Norming stage can feel a lot like that. Repetitive. Sometimes like a grind. But the grind is not the enemy. The grind is the forge.
Winston Churchill had a phrase for this. KBO. Keep Buggering On.
Not glamorous. Not inspirational. Just true.
The Norming stage is often the longest in the cycle. It is where most of the real development happens. And it is where leaders have to be the most patient, the most steady, and the most consistent in their encouragement.
Hold the standard. Stay the course. The Performing stage is coming.
PERFORMING
High Performance. New Level of Success. The Fulfilled Relationship.
This is what you were working toward.
The team is clicking. The results are following. The culture you fought for is now producing. People who once struggled are now leading. The struggling marriage is now thriving. The seller who almost quit is now your top performer.
What all of these have in common: they pushed through Storming, they ground through Norming, and now they are reaping what consistency produces.
This is the Performing stage. And it is real. Not theoretical. Not motivational. The fruit of the work you did in the stages before it.
The Cycle Continues
Here is what most frameworks miss.
The Performing stage is not the finish line. It is the launch pad.
When you master a level, the cycle resets at a higher level. The top seller crushes their quota, gets promoted to sales leader, and suddenly they are back at Forming. Different context. Different challenges. Different storms ahead.
Every new level of growth starts a new cycle.
This is why the most successful leaders are not the ones who escape the cycle. They are the ones who have been through it enough times to stop fearing it. They know what the storm means. They know how to lead people through the grind. They know that Performing is real and worth the fight.
Understanding this cycle is not just self-awareness. It is a leadership superpower.
Your Role as the Leader
You will see your team members at different stages of this cycle at the same time.
Some will be in Forming. Some will be in the storm. Some will be grinding through Norming. Some will be performing at a level that surprised even them.
Your job is to see where they are and lead them accordingly.
Teach your people that storms are not a sign to quit. They are a sign to dig in. Help them anticipate the Inflection Point before they hit it. Give them language for what they are experiencing, because named problems are far less frightening than unnamed ones.
And if someone on your team is in a storm right now, remind them of this:
They are on the right track. They just need to keep going.
Make it a great day.
Ben Ward
Founder, The Sellership System
