Business Development Forum - Developing your team to manage change

As I mentioned in my address at the Chamber Breakfast, building and maintaining effective teams requires excellent and clear communication.
Talking around and around in circles, or attempting to be overly clever can often work against a team leader by frustrating and annoying the team members.

Because the team environment can fluctuate – Forming, Storming, Norming and Performance, it is vital that the team leader ‘take the temperature’ of the team on a regular basis. This is best done by being available to and regularly interacting with the team – avoiding communication by memo and email where possible, but instead having face to face conversations with individuals and groups.

Teams are known to be an effective means of organisation, and are often an excellent way to spread the workload, responsibilities, create innovation and make the workday more enjoyable. If you are a team or organisational leader, then how well this happens is up to you!

I look forward to being of assistance to you via this blog – or if there is something that needs more private discussion, drop me an email or pick up the phone.  Cheers, Gary

Gary Eaton, Mills-Eaton Training presented this topic on Wednesday 11 March and will be available to answer questions regarding the topic until Friday 13 March. We would also encourage you to use this blog after this time to discuss the topic and/or share experiences.

Update, blog will be extended until Tuesday 17 March. Mills-Eaton are having some IT complications and will read your comments and answer your questions as soon as they are back online. Thanks for your patience.

Comments

[Gary Eaton]

Thanks Adelle

In order to move a team out of the storming stage there are indeed some strategies that the team leader can use:
> Monitor the team dynamic (what is working and what is not)
> Get members involved in how agreements and decisions are made (involving them in responsibility and ownership)
> Encourage team members to discuss their feelings
> Encourage team members to explore assumptions (incorrect or inaccurate assumptions are often the basis for inappropriate behaviour)

Cheers
Gary

[Gary Eaton]

Thanks David

The only addition that I would suggest is that the behaviour is the issue, whereas the person is not - in otherwords, it is important to separate the behaviour from the person in order to help that individual change the behaviour. To put it another way, the behaviour might be unacceptable but the person is not.

Cheers
Gary

[Gary Eaton]

Hi Erin

First it is important to try and understand why the team member is being difficult i.e. is this a short term issue or has the problem/attitude been around for a while.

If you are able, in conversation, to identify the issue that is making the person difficult, then you may be able to assist them to deal with the problem.

However, in the case of someone who is difficult over a longer period, and in spite of some intervention the situation has not improved, then you need to carefully consider the value of that person to the team or organisation. As I mentioned last week, we have seen some very skilled and valuable people moved outside the team - where they can still be of use to the organisation without continuing to cause disfunction within the team.

If this sort of move is not possible, then you may have to undertake a performance management approach - which will usually result in a change of behaviour or separation from the organisation.

Hope this helps, Gary

[Erin]

Update, blog will be extended until Tuesday 17 March. Mills-Eaton are having some IT complications and will read your comments and answer your questions as soon as they are back online. Thanks for your patience.

[Adelle]

If you have identified which environment your team is in, say storming, can you please share some strategies that the leader can employ to assist the team to move through the stages. Presumably you can support your team's process and accelerate movement through to the Performance stage.

[David Close]

One of the most important part of team leadership that I have discovered is clarity, clarity in purpose and direction. If every member of your team understands, not only their objectives, but have measurable KPI's, then this takes away from the personal aspect of the team member's performance. The focus is performance based and, as Gary said this morning, it is not personal. You can look at the situation as a topic for discussion, and take an objective view of the situation rather than the bahaviour.

[Erin]

Gary one of the questions asked at todays breakfast was that sometimes you can come accross a difficult team member, can you give us some tips on how to deal with this situation