Team Development for more effectiveness and productivity
“The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.”
– Phil Jackson
Building More Effective Teams
Great teams do not just happen. It takes deliberate and consistent attention and effort for individuals to work together as productive teams. Relationships need to be developed and nurtured. If not, negative behaviours can take root either openly or behind the scenes.
At the minimum, these behaviours take precious energy and resources away from organizational achievements and success. At the worst, the behaviours are contagious and what started as an isolated case becomes the new normal.
Sandra Marin’s career has brought her inside many large organizations where she saw (and fixed) many of the issues that come up when many people work together in one organization.
Hire Sandra and get your team working with a workshop facilitator and coach that understands both the view from your recent hire, and from the C-suite.
Team Development from Sandra Marin may be for you if:
The team needs to increase individual accountability and commitment to the team.
You have recently taken on a new team and want to position the team for long term success.
You would like to see less competition, and more collaboration and trust between team members.
Your team’s mandate has recently changed, and team members seem to be struggling with the new direction.
Elements of an effective team
An effective team has a number of foundational elements in place.
Clear and mutually agreed upon objectives. We know why we are here and what our vision and mission is.
Clearly defined roles and responsibilities. Everyone understands how they fit and who is doing what, when.
Effective processes around decision making. How to make them, communicate them, review and support them.
Meetings are productive and communication is bottom up, top down and sideways across the organization.
Commitment to the team. Individual members put their personal agendas aside for the advancement of the team.
Conflict is dealt with openly and honestly. Team members are committed to working through difficult situations constructively.
Teams trust and support each other.
Tuckman’s Model for Teams
Leaders’ behaviours need to vary depending on which stage their team is at. If the leader does not know what stage their team is at, their leadership behaviors will be ineffective at least, damaging at worst. e.g. teams in the forming stage need more direction from their leader. Teams in the performing stage thrive with a much more participatory leadership style.
The first step in building a more effective team is the Intake or Diagnosis Stage — where is the team currently and what do they need from their leader as a result. This usually involves a variety of data collection methods such as one on one interviews, surveys, small focus group discussion etc.
Sandra Marin uses a variety of models and tools to help teams develop. Tuckman’s model is one.
The Forming – Storming – Norming – Performing model of team development was first proposed by Bruce Tuckman in 1965. Dr. Tuckman believed that all four of these phases are necessary and inevitable for a team to grow, to rise to challenges and tackle problems, to find solutions, plan work and deliver results. This model has become the basis for subsequent models of team dynamics and is frequently used to describe the behavior of existing teams.
Tuckman later added a fifth phase, adjourning, that involves the completion of the team’s tasks and the team’s disbanding and discontinuance. A team that lasts may ultimately transcend to a transforming phase of achievement.
Sandra’s team development has worked for:
Volunteer Boards who wanted to use their time together more effectively and efficiently.
Department Managers who wanted to improve the level of trust between cross functional teams.
VP’s with multi-level teams looking for increased accountability from team members.
Senior leadership teams that wanted to improve their social process skills.
Could your team benefit from Sandra Marin? Here are some questions you may be asking yourself:
Why are my change initiatives not being implemented by my teams?
Why does productivity feel low, compared to the number of staff on board?
Why is there so much interpersonal drama on some teams, but not others?
How do I get my separate teams to work better together?
Are you ready for someone to challenge you?
Let's get in touch
