INNOVATION MEETS TUCKMAN

In this thought experiment, I attempt to marry Tuckman's model of group development with key factors of innovation, exploring how and when the ground for organisational, project and team innovation is most fertile and what can be done to nurture this condition permanently.

Chasing innovation on all levels

The ability to adapt and to reform has been a gamechanger since day 1. Instances of innovation include humans starting to make fire by rubbing two stones together, humans starting to domesticate horses, humans learning how to grow grains, humans inventing the wheel, humans inventing printing techniques - this list goes on and on. In economic spheres, innovation is characterised by the introduction of specialised work stations, the steam machine or assembly belts and later on the internet as well as (big) data to fuel and catalyse production. These are all big examples, though. In broad terms, innovation means to start or stop doing something that creates value (Kent, 2024).

That's why strategies as to accommodate and account for innovation are very sought after by corporations. Malik et al. (2024) found that leaders demonstrating openness, participation and agility drive business model innovation. Artificial intelligence is also increasingly used to spot points for improvement and organisational performance (Khan, Mehmood & Khan, 2025), utilising its enabling and enhancing capabilities (Gama & Magistretti, 2025). On a bigger level, scholars have also noted the involvement of governance as a deciding factor whether innovation can take place. Shenzhen, China's economic megahub and powerhouse, only became the region's engine for innovation thanks to very tangible adjustments in the area: smart city engineering, government finance and subsidies and favourable policy-making, to name a few (Mattes et al., 2025). Innovation takes place on multiple levels: from the individual all the way up to the state.

Enter Tuckman

Tuckman (1965) outlined first four, then five (Tuckman & Jensen, 1977) stages of group development: forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. This model is a way of understanding social dynamics within a given group through time. Given the big scientific corpus on innovation, I shall restrict myself to the team or project level.

Predictors for innovation on a team level are manifold (Hülsheger, Anderson & Salgado, 2009) and can be subject to individual capacity (Cooper & Robertson, 2002), suggesting that member selection for teams plays a pivotal role and must not be underestimated by managers. Similarly, the adoption of innovation depends on multiple factors (Åstebro & Michela, 2005; Chor et al., 2025) and the nature of the innovation, and will be discarded from this review. I argue that there are five macro-predictors of innovation that have weighed importance over the course of the innovation process.

Merging innovation and group development

Form. In this phase, group members orient themselves through testing, seeking relationships and meaning in coming together (Tuckman, 1965). Two factors that are most important for this process are freedom and diversity. Freedom because it allow members to play, be curious and 'test'. Diversity because it facilitates ground for fruitful discourse. Lastly, money acts as an enabling factor for the team to commence its activities.

Storm. This phase is characterised by conflict and polarised opinions (Tuckman, 1965) and requires another element: leadership. Conflict can be highly useful when factual and steered to an overall goal that benefits the team and creates multiplied value. Diversity and freedom still play an important part because they allow for diverse perspectives, knowledge and expertise as well as trust and safety to share.

Norm. While the aforementioned parameters carry on to this stage, another one is introduced: moderate pressure. Once a group has settled down, the danger of falling into a 'business-as-usual' mindset is best tackled by moderate pressure like deliverables or deadlines.

Perform. Here, no new variables are introduced, but the importance changes. Leadership incrementally becomes more important as people might be experiencing team or task fatigue, so resources must be allocated to ensure team synergy. Money gradually becomes slightly less important because most of the heavy investment lifting has been done in the beginning.

Adjourn. Suddenly, money surges in importance because of the high adoption costs of innovation. Likewise, leadership is crucial for innovation implementation but also for closing the purpose of the team and ensuring team learning and reflection as well as rewards. Pressure as a tool at this point is nonsense because it serves no clear purpose.

Towards a model

To summarise these ideas, I have created a model showing all macro-predictors during the group development stages over time, as outlined above.

This hypothesis needs testing and scientific validation. As mentioned, this model is limited to innovation on team level, has been deducted from thorough literature review and offers no insights into innovation adoption (post-model). It would be interesting to see this thesis unfold in a scientific environment and backed up with statistical data.

© Luka Paul Vethake, 2025