Team Development

The achievement of almost every organisational goal relies on people working together. Poorly functioning teams are not only ineffective, but can be prone to engaging in counterproductive behaviours; actively working against your objectives. Building trust, improving communication, conflict resolution styles, and decision-making, and developing positive group dynamics can help a dysfunctional team align their expectations and start to work collaboratively towards the same goals, becoming productive and high performing.

For strong, successful teams, team development can facilitate the acquisition of new skills, explore new ways of working, streamline processes, stimulate innovation, and further promote efficiency. We can also work with you to understand the factors that are leading to a teams success so that these can be replicated in other teams across the business.

TEAM DAYS

When we design a team day, the focus is always on building capability and improving functioning to achieve maximum productivity and team effectiveness.

Even though the outcomes may be serious, the process of achieving them is inclusive, engaging, and fun. In fact, we facilitate most of our team days offsite, and spend plenty of time being social and trying new and exciting things. The difference with our approach is that even the most enjoyable activities serve a purpose; whether that is to create understanding, encourage trust, facilitate connection, or learn transferable skills.

TRAINING AND PLANNING

If the goal of the session is primarily focused on exploring a new concept, ensuring learning transfer of new skills, or undertaking ideas generation or strategic planning, these are conducted using more traditional methods (i.e., probably in a boardroom). However, the structure of the sessions and our approach to getting the most value from the time is still guided by established psychological principles and our comprehensive understanding of how people think, feel, and behave.

Our Approach

As Organisational Psychologists, we are focused on more than facilitating activities and games. We take the time to understand your team, its operating context, and the outcomes you are trying to achieve, as well as exploring and assessing the underlying barriers to success. Once we have a clear understanding of what your team needs to accomplish and what is holding them back, we can design a team development plan that fits your specific circumstances.

Being external to the business affords us the ability to remain independent and unbiased which results in increased openness and honestly from the team. This can greatly assist in ensuring that challenges, needs, and desired outcomes are clearly and completely defined. During development activities, this also leads to increased buy-in and genuine participation, resulting in better learning transfer and behavioral change.

Our goal is always to equip your team with the processes, frameworks, and tools that will allow them to be responsible for their own success into the future and develop and support others in the business using what they have learnt.

Effective Communication

For many teams, operational outcomes are the core priority. However, over time, as teams grow and people leave and start, the work and expectations shift, and organisational and leadership structure and processes change, proactive communication, collaboration, and strategically planned decision-making can take a back seat to reactive, task-driven work, and a focus on short-term outcomes.

After gaining a comprehensive understanding of your team and how they function, and identifying their strengths and opportunities for development (both as a group and individuals), we will provide you with a set of recommendations for systematically developing their capability. In our experience, many of the barriers to successful team functioning tend to evolve from ineffective communication. Before moving onto more targeted team development interventions, we explore and address the underlying communication challenges which exist between team members by facilitating an open and honest conversation and co-creating a sustainable way for the team to communicate and collaborate in the future.

ASSESSMENT AND PROFILING

In order to define the most appropriate strategies for developing your team, there is a need to evaluate the current state and understand how this differs from the ideal. We use comprehensive, evidence-based, assessments to thoroughly understand both the individuals and their personalities, and the relationships which exist between them. Alongside existing measures, we can develop custom assessments to explore culture, psychological safety, change agility, or other relevant factors, as well as designing context-specific 360-degree feedback to gather a holistic view of team members from multiple stakeholders both internal and external to the business.

We consider this information in the context of the their roles, the broader department in which they work, your organisation, and any industry specific circumstances which may impact the what the team are to achieve or how they should go about it.

PERSONALITY & CUSTOM MEASURES

Personality assessment is effective in predicting both performance and role and organisational fit. Team reports can be used alongside job descriptions and KPIs to identify areas of team strength and development needs.

They can also identify if individual coaching or development is necessary, or if the team needs to recruit to fill a gap.

Team Development Services

Whether you need a brief skills training session delivered as a lunch-and-learn, or are after a multi-day offsite retreat to stand up a new team or complete intensive strategic planning, we can develop a plan to support your team's development.

BUILDING CONNECTED TEAMS

Understand team dynamics and create productive collaboration and communication strategies to ensure an agile and connected team that works collectively towards the same goals.

TEAM ROLE DEFINITION

Avoid the conflict and inefficiency caused by a lack of role clarity by precisely defining areas of responsibility and accountability, and setting expectations of how joint projects will be approached.

NEW TEAM DEVELOPMENT

Understand and select the right composition of people you need to achieve your teams goals, define an aligned purpose and vision, and hit the ground running with strong communication and genuine trust.

PROCESS DEVELOPMENT

Develop effective team processes, frameworks, and procedures to ensure a consistent approach is maintained, reducing duplication of work and streamlining repetitive tasks to allow the team to focus on value generating work.

CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Involve the team in planning and implementing changes, while building their resilience on a personal and group level, and teaching them how to effectively communicate change and lead others through uncertainty.

STRATEGIC PLANNING

A comprehensive and inclusive process designed to consider the input of various stakeholders. Leaders can be fully present and participate without having the responsibility of managing schedules, agendas, or participants.

ALIGNED LEADERSHIP

Improving consistency and aligning the approach leaders take when managing workflow and people facilitates collaboration and efficiency in individual teams and on joint projects and promotes agility and knowledge sharing within the broader department.

CONFLICT RESOLUTION

Addressing unresolved communication issues in a safe space and teaching productive approaches to communication which can be adapted to suit different types of individuals and for various situations and desired outcomes.

BUILDING INCLUSIVE TEAMS

Reflecting on current levels of inclusion and team culture, developing an understanding of the positive outcomes of psychologically safe working environments and equipping leaders and team members with the skills required to create them.