Objectives

For the main sponsors – the R&D Manager and Site Director – one of the key outcomes required from this programme of events was to evidence and quantify how the development programme had provided a basis for improved team effectiveness.

Outline

Lead Facilitator Mike Tierney responded to this requirement by incorporating our proprietary Team Effectiveness Inventory (TEI) into the programme. Prior to the event we used the TEI to take a baseline measure of the team’s effectiveness across five key functional areas of team effectiveness; Positive Roles & Norms, Team Mission, Goal Achievement, Empowerment and Open, Honest Communication. The initial TEI results, combined with further consultation with the R&D Manager and full Belbin Team Role profiling for all members of the project team, helped to inform the scope of three subsequent team development workshops.

The programme kicked off with a Belbin Team Roles workshop, to enable team members to understand behavioural style preferences for self and others, and to understand the different, individual, behavioural contributions required for team success.

In week two Mike delivered a workshop that led the team to think about decision making and accountability and what this meant at a team and personal level and how the team could work together to improve this. The final session looked at how to have difficult conversations when stakes are high and emotions are involved too. Each team member developed useful skills that will allow them to have the important conversations that sometimes go unspoken, or are held badly.

All workshops ended with a ‘Thinking into Action’ personal and team action planning session, plus a planning for efficiency and effectiveness session during the final programme.