Team Development and Group Facilitation

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Someone once calculated that when two people communicate, they exchange 5-10 thousand bits of information per second (whoever did the counting, probably should have got out more). So, when you put a whole team in a room, clearly you get a lot of bits flying about! These bits will show as three patterns, which can benefit from team development and facilitation:

Pattern 1
The team are a new team who need to be up on their feet immediately, like baby wildebeest, so that they can take off before they get eaten (c'mon, it beats 'hit the ground running').

Pattern 2
The team is happy and relates well; the members are functioning and productive. Their focus is on The Goal and they are looking for external, dispassionate process expertise to enable them to find the fastest, most efficient way of achieving their intended outcomes.

Pattern 3
The team are dysfunctional, troubled or traumatised and spend precious organisational time spinning their wheels on conflict, misery, absenteeism, correcting poor quality work, or failing to get much done at all.

What we can provide for new teams:

• We help kick-start and fast-track Project and other teams so that they migrate as quickly as possible from talking about the work to doing the work and getting business results.
• There is good evidence that innovative teams have clear objectives. We co-design with the team a well-structured, efficient process that helps the team rapidly develop its Team Charter: Mission, Values, Vision, Strategy, Measures, and Processes so that it can get on.
• Where you have a number of teams, we can bring the team leaders into action learning sets in order to develop their contribution to the business.

What we can provide for intact teams:

• We can work with teams who are further on than newly commissioned teams to expedite their journey to high performance. Following Tuckman, if your team is forming, we move it along, if it is storming, we pilot it through the storm, if norming, we sharpen the approach and if performing we help it plan for high performance.
• If the team has a discrete issue to consider, we will provide you with an expert facilitator who will co-design your team retreat with you and your team, and then facilitate the retreat to achieve its intended outcomes.
• We can fast track your Project Teams from development of their Terms of Reference to evaluation and wind-down, job done.

Dysfunctional and troubled teams:

• When all around are losing their heads, we can handle and resolve difference. OPDC majors on its conflict resolution, negotiation and psychological skills enabling us comfortably to handle the entire continuum from mild disagreement to conflicts bordering on the homicidal and litigious. We know how to contain the conflict and make it safe. We work hard and ensure that no one gets hurt; no one is humiliated, that the outcome is win-win.
• Some teams don't want a post-mortem; they are just desperate to move on to constructively creating their future. Other teams cannot move on unless their emotional baggage is fully expressed, a scary thing to do. For those teams who need first to deal with unfinished business, we help them navigate this road safely, using the formal discipline of Dialogue.
• Where a team has been traumatised by some event or catastrophe, we help them with sense making, facilitated with a light touch. We provide ongoing support and coaching for the manager as the changes and new agreements are embedded.
• We encourage paced reviews, some distance hence, that motivate the team because they will want to report success: that they honoured their agreements.

Conclusion
Our facilitators are expert, quick-thinking jazz players: they have a deep knowledge of the chords, the riffs, the phrasing that enables them to follow their plan, but they are sharp enough to jam when they need to, stringing techniques and processes together on the fly, in response to the emergent process in the room. We get the team to consensus on actions decisions and solutions, fast.

Three examples of our work

A major global manufacturer faced a serious conflict between three senior managers in its management team. There was talk of litigation, dismissal and resignation. We interviewed all members of the management team individually and then met with the three protagonists at a neutral venue. Following a highly structured process, we kept the meeting safe whilst the managers faced up to their differences and negotiated tough agreements on how they would conduct their business in future. We learnt on follow-up, that so successful was this piece of work that the managers were beginning to socialise outside of work as well as do business with each other at work.

A large utility company called us in following a fatality. We worked with the members of the team individually, before bringing them together for sense making and grieving.

An NHS Trust Board (Executive and Non-Executive Directors) wanted to work on a large number of issues but was under severe time pressure. We planned the event meticulously for the retreat. On the day, we equipped each member of the Board with a networked laptop running decision support software (Ventana's GroupSystems). A large number of important agenda items were quickly dispatched using this accelerated process.