Team Effectiveness

When teams work together like a well-oiled machine, great things happen. Productivity becomes greater than the sum of its parts.

If however, you are struggling with disparate ideas, low morale, lack of motivation and a general lack of understanding and appreciation of one another in your team, problems will arise, mistakes may happen and efficiencies won’t exist.

I work with teams at all levels, including senior leadership teams, to improve overall communication and collaboration. We follow a process to enable all team members to get to know each other better, understand each other’s strengths and contributions, and improve communication.

Caroline worked with the Agency’s executive management team in a number of really eye-opening sessions. This was revelatory and, over a period of a year, quite transformational. James C Curran,
Chief Executive, Scottish Environment Protection Agency

Caroline worked with the Agency’s executive management team in a number of really eye-opening sessions.  Most instrumental was her ability to help us all realise our different strengths and weaknesses but, most importantly, our different perceptions of each other and the ways we communicate.  I think that this was revelatory and, over a period of a year, quite transformational.  Having stepped up a gear, the executive team was then helped by Caroline to look wider at the functioning of collaborative relationships across the organisation.  This is also now delivering real benefits.

Team Development

During a series of structured sessions, we work on different aspects of what it takes to build a cohesive team, contrasting the theory to the reality of your current team make-up.  We firstly establish a safe environment to ensure everyone feels confident to speak honestly, openly, and to listen to one another.

The work is tailored to explore specific issues that individuals or the team as a whole bring to the sessions and includes examining areas such as:

• Personality type mapping
• Individual learning style
• Aligning business objectives/establishing a common purpose
• Cultural contributions
• Coping under pressure
• Appreciating strengths, skills and experience
• Communication – channels, frequency and participation
• Integration of team members
• Aligning expectations of one another
• Collaborative working
• Building trust and better relationships
• Silo working
• Breaking down barriers
• Achieving deadlines/accountability
• Addressing ‘thorny’ issues
• Adapting to change
• Problem solving

Results

The work can be intensive, yet hugely rewarding, as we unlock effective team working skills that often lie just beneath the surface. These sessions offer an opportunity for all participants to take an active role, to be heard and to reflect on how their own behaviours may be helping or hindering the performance of the entire team.

Towards the end of each team development day, we pause to evaluate the progress that has been made, and this is often when team members appreciate the real value of one another. This is a time when we expect to see everyone take individual ownership of their own commitment to the common goals.

Team bonding is always a tangible added benefit of the work we do, with relationships noticeably stronger after our sessions. This leads to reports of improved overall performance at both individual and team level which lasts for the long term.

To find out more about improving team collaboration, please email me to arrange a no obligation conversation. I’d be very happy to hear from you.