Team Development Solutions
Corporate Solutions - Leadership Training - Pennsylvania
While the lion's share of Sherpa's solutions are custom developed for each client, we do offer a few packaged team development sessions as well. (Our 5-Step Process to Outstanding Customer Experiences ensures that each session will meet the specific needs of your group.)
Defining the Team
What: This is the coming together phase (though it does not always occur at the beginning of a team's lifecycle).
It is critical for team members to know what binds them together and to understand why the team exists. What is
the teams' role and value within the organization? What purpose does the team serve? Individuals will also ponder how he/she fits into the team and what his/her personal value and purpose is this is explored extensively in the next phase.
Tools: Team mission, vision, and purpose, Guiding Principles, Ground Rules / Defining Norms, Clearly defined
management expectations of the team, Dimensions of Team Assessment
Individual Competencies
What: Developing acute self-awareness is critical to maximizing value and contributions to the team and organization. Through assessment, reflection, and inquiry team members develop a realistic understanding of their current strengths
and mental models (the attitudes, perceptions, and assumptions we make and how they influence our thoughts and interactions). This phase of team development also involves gaining an awareness of others' styles and strengths,
defining roles and responsibilities, and clarifying expectations.
Tools: 360-Degree Feedback, Personal Styles Assessments such as the DiSC Classic or the Myers-Briggs Type
Indicator, Leadership Style Assessment, Communication Style Assessment, One-on-One Performance Coaching,
Team Coaching, Individual Development Plan (IDP), Experiential activities
Building Relationships
What: Relationship Building is at the center of our team model. We do not view Relationship Building as a phase of development, but rather as the rope that ties a team together and holds them there. Research has shown1 that healthy
team relationships are characteristic of unusually successful teams. And bad relationships are the most frequent source
of the destruction of teams and team effort.
Characteristics of "good" relationships: trusting, caring, helpful, open, honest, respectful, constructive, productive, mutual understanding, and self-corrective. Characteristics of "bad" relationships: unreasonable, unfair, selfish, threatening, inflexible, ambiguity, negativity. Creating an collaborative environment of openness and supportiveness, where individuals trust each other, generally like each other and have each other's (as well as the team's) best interests in mind at all times is foundational to high performance.
Tools: Appreciative Inquiry, Conflict-Handling Styles Assessment, Mediation, System for giving and receiving feedback, Inference Ladder and exploring Mental Models, Experiential activities.
Open Communciation
What: In this step team members investigate the best of what exists in their team's communication and makes
a commitment to develop strategies for effective, timely and frequent communication.
Tools: Communication Style Assessment, Appreciative Inquiry, Experiential activities
Team Competencies
What: At this phase, we see increased cohesion and more collaboration. Individuals understand their value
and their role(s) within the team. Trust is building, relationships are growing, and differences are appreciated.
Team member interactions are balanced between a focus on the tasks at hand and a focus on strengthening
relationships, communicating openly, and providing positive and constructive feedback to one another. It is now
critical to discuss and identify the teams' strategy around decision-making, problem solving, handling conflicts,
performance issues, accountability, coaching and personal development. These are not one-time conversations,
but habitual inquiries and discussions, fostering a dynamic and forward-thinking team.
Tools: Appreciative Inquiry, Team Effectiveness Inventory, Experiential activities, Survival Simulations focusing
on team decision-making, prioritization, and problem-solving, Execution Intelligence, Change models or approaches,
Team Coaching, Leadership Development
Continuous Improvements
What: A high performing team is one that regularly evaluates internal and external expectations, its performance,
its value to the organization, roles, creativity and innovation. Team processes may need continued refinement to
ensure they are time-efficient and productive. Individual team members take responsibility for their own on-going development and ever-increasing personal effectiveness.
Tools: The periodic "checking out" of team and individual assumptions, Change Management Strategy, Force Field
analysis and similar tools for providing a fresh and innovative approach to team/organizational issues; Appreciative
Inquiry, Continuous Learning Opportunities, One-on-One Performance Coaching, Team Coaching, Individual
Development Plan (IDP)
1 Larson, Carl and LaFasto, Frank, When Teams Work Best, Sage Publications, Inc., 2001.