Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed. It is the only thing that ever has.”
Margaret Mead
Cultural Anthropologist
Psychological Team Integration
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The Heart of Great Team Performance
Whilst individual coaching and self-development is a very powerful way to create change, sustainable individual change can often only really be achieved if the context or system they are in also changes to support and reinforce new behaviours, priorities and ways of thinking.
Being able to operate at our best is highly dependent on the team environment. When a team works well together there is an exhilarating dynamic that is in play: one of energy, enthusiasm and natural flow: one that fosters collaboration, trust, innovation, participation, accountability and the achievement of outstanding results.
However, quite often the dynamics in play within a team can be destructive. They can cause unnecessary conflict, breakdown in communication and the playing out of political agendas which create conflict, stagnation and ultimately hold the team back. Very often these dynamics go unchecked, either because they are invisible or because individual team members simply don’t know how to deal with the problems. When this happens, the issues don’t miraculously go away, they fester and bubble, becoming the proverbial ‘elephant under the table’. The resulting dynamic then plays havoc within the team, effecting morale and motivation and the ability to get things done.
Working with a robust diagnostic process, my 1 – 2day Team Thinking exercise is a practical intervention to address and resolve the psychological dynamics at play within the team in a non-threatening and collaborative manner. The programme is designed to facilitate open dialogue, the sharing of concerns and fears and work constructively with challenges.
The Programme will help your team to:
- Build deeper levels of trust, collaboration and commitment within the team
- Define the underlying psychological dynamics at play within the team in a non-threatening and collaborative manner
- Develop a climate of psychological safety conducive to collective learning.
- Gain greater clarity, coherence and consistency around team priorities, i.e. what’s most important for the team to achieve collectively.
- Dispel some of the destructive assumptions and beliefs that hold the team back and facilitate new ways of working that want to emerge
- Get to the heart of issues of conflict Manage all three types of conflict (task, process and relationship) constructively – so that conflict becomes a driver of performance, rather than a barrier.
- Explore the team culture and help it evolve in line with the changing environment
- Understand and value the contribution each member can make at their best, and how to support each other in creating circumstances, where they can play to their strengths
- Increase the level of creativity and innovation, communication and dialogue
- Improve the effectiveness of communication, both between team members and with external stakeholders
- Have a stronger sense of shared purpose and greater resilience in the face of setbacks
Create a platform of dialogue and communication which can be taken back into the working environment
Combining the workshop with the principles from the Ontology of Leadership, the team develops a shared common understanding of the dynamic nature of human interaction. This has the added advantage of:
- Creating a more accountable and dynamic team environment
- The capacity to self-correct and resolve conflict without intervention
- Greater levels of self-reflection, accountability and responsibility
- Continuous learning in the face of change and disruption
- Put new levels of learning into practice
Because everyone in the team learns and reflects together, teams that embrace team coaching tend to demonstrate more focused, collective energy. As they learn together – and support each other’s learning – they can use real work issues to put the learning into practice, so embedding new skills. Typically, co-coaching becomes a routine activity.
Team Thinking interventions of this nature are not always transformational. Nor are they the answer for all team performance issues – if the team is just a bunch of people who work together, but have no desire for collective improvement, then the impact will likely be very limited. The same applies if the team leader does not involve themselves in the process.
Where Team Thinking Interventions do frequently add value is when:
- A team is dysfunctional and not working collaboratively or effectively
- There is conflict and disparity within the team
- A new team is being formed and needs to hit the ground running
- When a team needs to redefine its collective habits for success
- A long-established team has lost its ‘mojo’ and wants to regain it
A top team wants to operate independently and even become a role model for the rest of the organisation
