Scottish Sea Farms – Team Development

This half-day programme combined BELBIN Team Role profiling and theory, facilitated discussion sessions on self-awareness and connecting values, and also incorporated specially selected experiential team activities from our TeamWorks portfolio to bring to life the knowledge and learning gained.

Event details:

Event: Facilitated team development, incorporating BELBIN Team Role profiling & theory and TeamWorks experiential activities

Date: January 2017

Duration: An extended half day afternoon event

Where: Port of Menteith, Stirlingshire

 

Objectives:

The Scottish Sea Farms UK Sales & Commercial Management team were initially looking for an afternoon of fun, interactive team building activities, selected to:

  • Develop self-awareness
  • Identify preferred team roles
  • Identify team strength and improvement opportunities
  • Create plan to implement improvements
  • Develop a team values charter and identify the individual and team behaviour required to live these
  • Create a plan to achieve accountability around these values

Prior to the programme Lead Facilitator Mike Tierney consulted with the three project sponsors to better understand expectations and desired outcomes for the day. The fit with BELBIN Team Role profiling and theory became clear, and prior to the day we administered online profiling to all team members, which allowed the production of interpretive individual and team reports. We offered a selection of team activities from our TeamWorks team development programme portfolio to bring to life the knowledge and learning gained. The day culminated in the creation of sales team ‘charter’ and guidance on how values and supporting behaviours could be taken forward.

 

What we did:

Johari Window. On the day, to kick start the process of enhancing self-awareness through disclosure and feedback, Mike provided an explanation of the Johari window model and took the team through an exercise to demonstrate the value of openness and honesty in teams.

Connecting values and behaviour. A session providing an illustrative example of the connection between ‘values and behaviour’ that would provide a connection between the team exercises, reflection and session output. This was a quick session positioned to make it easier for participants to accept feedback and become more aware of how their actions rather than their intent influence others.

BELBIN Team Role theory. Moving on to Belbin Team Roles, the concept of behavioural styles and the 9 team role types in the model were briefly introduced, along with the importance of identifying behavioural characteristics, including strengths and allowable weaknesses. The outcome here was the sharing of a common understanding of team role theory and developing a shared understanding of the key concepts and their practical application.

Individual BELBIN Reports and reflection. After a walk through the individual Belbin reports step by step, ensuring comprehension and significance of self and observer assessments, participants were encouraged to use the ‘how to use your Belbin Team Role report’ work book, reflecting on the similarities and or difference between self and observer and identifying how their contribution is perceived and valued by the team.

“Colourblind” – a quick-fire team activity selected to provide an experience for the team to examine the contributions of individual behaviour when engaged in a team task.

BELBIN Team Role – Team Report. After this first experiential team activity, Mike walked the team through their Belbin Team Reports step by step ensuring comprehension; identifying team strengths and improvement opportunities and creating an action plan overcome any assessed deficiencies.

“Sequencer”. A second TeamWorks activity was introduced for the team to explore and implement the learning and actions from the session thus far – reflecting on how changes to improve team performance could be sustained.

Defining our Values – a Sales Team Charter. Identifying the values that we want others to use to describe our contribution, and identify the behaviours that sit under these. A draft ‘charter’ of team values was created to define how the team wished to be perceived by all stakeholder groups, and the behaviours necessary to underpin this.

Taking our values forward. In the final session Mike shared ideas with the team as to how it could hold itself accountable to living the values they aspire to. After this session a tangible tool for accountability was developed for application.

Who took part:

What they said:

 “Mike and the team at Maximillion took care to ensure that they established a deep understanding of our business, our sales process and our team and what we were trying to achieve before building an agenda for our day. The agenda was extremely flexible as Mike had several options that could be used as the day unfolded depending on the needs that were emerging as we moved through the day however the pre agreed end goal was always kept in sight.

As a team we benefited from gaining a better understanding of the roles each of us play within the team and what areas we need to concentrate our efforts in to become a more effective team. The day also allowed us to see the business from a more strategic viewpoint and to find ways in which we could align our team to the business strategy.
As individuals we left with a greater sense of where our strengths lay and what is important to us, both in life in general and in work. Each individual also gained a sense of purpose and worth to the company through the allowance of time to think, assess and reflect whilst being off site; which can be too rare an opportunity in day to day office life.

The content of the day lent itself to the creation of short, medium and long term plans meaning the momentum would be kept up after the initial event. Following the session the team have been steadily working through the actions generated on the day which we review every week. We plan to hold a more detailed review session after the first 6 months to assess progress made and look forward to what’s next. We feel this would be enriched by inviting Mike back to facilitate this review as having a trained and experienced fresh set of independent eyes on us, and our business, from concept through to delivery was invaluable in terms of focus, challenge and support.”