Teambuilding

Almost everyone works in one or more teams. Business success depends on the high performance of these teams. Successful, high-performing teams excel at the 3 C’s  – collaboration, coordination, and communication.  

But even the most talented, most dedicated, most productive teams require on-going maintenance. Our work with teams is based on two fundamental principles:  

#1: All human systems naturally deteriorate. Over time, human systems tend to “run down” unless given periodic maintenance. This is true whether the team is a management team, an employee team, or a cross functional project team.  Without periodic maintenance, collaboration, coordination, and communication deteriorate; performance declines; focus drifts.

#2: Teams have within themselves the ability to solve their own problems. When deterioration sets in, team members often blame external forces or each other, and sometimes feel helpless to improve the situation. But our experience in working with hundreds of teams over the past 25 years shows that – given the right environment, the right process, and a skilled facilitator – teams can and will get issues on the table, and solve them. At AHA, “TTT – Trust the Team” is more than a catchy phrase. We don’t “fix” teams – we provide the environment and the process by which they regenerate themselves.

Clients typically call us for Teambuilding solutions in one of three situations:  

An effective, high-performing team that understands the inevitability of deterioration and plans periodic maintenance and regeneration to keep its focus sharp, and to adapt to changing business conditions.  

A newly formed team, or one with new members that wants to get off on the right foot -- integrate new members, build collaborative relationships, and align mission, goals, roles, and processes.  

A team with problems – declining performance, confused roles, interpersonal conflict, lack of trust.

In all 3 types of cases, AHA consultants have played a key facilitative role in getting teams to

Clearly articulate their goals – where they want to go

Clarify and negotiate their roles

Identify and commit to improve weak or nonexistent team processes

Make consensus decisions regarding the business

Surface difficult, sensitive issues – “the elephant in the room” -- and talk about them honestly

Affirm support of the team and of each other

Commit to and own specific follow up action for improvement

Each Teambuilding facilitation is tailored to the specific requirements of the situation and the team. The following suggests some of the options for strengthening teams in a variety of situations:

1. Diagnosing: It is essential that the Teambuilding Facilitator fully understand the situation and the individuals. This process can include a fact-finding and planning interview with the team sponsor, and in-depth interviews with each team member.
2. Data gathering: Depending on what is learned in the initial diagnostic conversations, we may also administer questionnaires such as:
1. Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator
2. FIRO-B
3. Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Style Survey
4. Decision Style Survey
5. Team Work and Team Roles Survey
6. Team Effectiveness Index
3. Analysis and Summary: We analyze all data from interviews and instruments and write a summary for the team.
4. Teambuilding Session: The session with the team will vary in length depending on the issues identified, and the goals of the teambuilding intervention.
5. Follow up: The Facilitator provides the team with a summary of notes from the session, especially the decisions, commitments, and accountabilities. Our Facilitators are available by phone and email to answer questions and provide further guidance as needed.

See Also:

Assessment

AHA Facilitators

Team Effectiveness

Managing Remote Teams

Case Study

The management team of a government organization had a new CEO – young, creative, energetic and with a style totally different from his predecessor who had been in the job for 15 years. Some members of his team were far more comfortable with the old style and resistant to his initial efforts to change things. Relationships within the team were generally collegial, but there were long-standing conflicts in a few areas. The team had also developed a pattern of much discussion on issues in their weekly meetings, but little closure.  Further, the political landscape had changed such that revenue was not keeping up with the rapid growth in service demand.

The CEO had concluded that the challenges facing the organization could not be successfully managed by doing “business as usual.” He felt a collaborative approach to addressing the complex issues facing the community was essential for the future.  He asked AHA to facilitate a teambuilding process to help address these issues.

Diagnostic interviews confirmed and added rich detail to our initial picture of the troubling situation. Our interviews also tested each team member: How might you be contributing to the situation as it currently exists? What are you willing to do to improve it? Each team member also completed the Myers-Briggs and the Conflict Survey.

At the off-site session, the team members found our diagnostic summary “right on the money,” a clear, concise picture of the issues preventing this team from being the high-performance team they wanted to be, and that the CEO – and the citizens – needed them to be. This unbiased summary of their own data began the important process of “unfreezing” in order to change.

Exploration of personality types and conflict styles revealed to them some of the sources of the conflict and the dysfunctional ways in which they had been handling conflicts.  Team members were paired up to conduct “relationship negotiation” conversations in which they jointly explored ways to work together more effectively in the future. A frequently heard comment was “We should have had this conversation three years ago.” In some cases the candor and openness of these conversations were a real breakthrough.

The major work of the group was to identify specific team processes that needed improvement, to target major community issues that needed to be addressed through collaborative effort, and to plot action steps, accountabilities, and due dates.  The group became energized and passionate about their commitment to take action on a range of important and difficult strategies.

Follow up sessions included addressing their decision processes. We used the Decision Style Survey and a decision simulation to get at the importance of knowing when to involve others, when to seek more data, and when time was of the essence. This was an eye-opening experience for many, and helped to further the CEO’s goal of improved strategic decision-making.

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