The Atomic sub-Unit of Organisations: Teams
We don't do awaydays.
Team awaydays are often just superficial bonding exercises - escapism designed to avoid the very things that are making it difficult for you to work well together. These become superficial bonding exercises that, at best, leave people having had fun without addressing what is really going on and, at worst, deepening distrust and dysfunction.
Remember: teams are groups, and as such the atomic sub-unit of your organisation. If a team cannot operate with sufficient flow, and work through tensions well, the wider organisation suffers. Hello siloes and fiefdoms, goodbye cross-functional working, collaboration and constructive conflict.
Our approach starts with an assumption that you want something to be different...
Otherwise, why bother?
Making Sense Together
The missing piece in most cases is the lack of capability in terms of collective sense making. Too often teams move to action quickly, sometimes with good intent and at other times to avoid discomfort e.g. of conflict, strong emotions, having to hold each other to account etc.
We help teams develop a nous for sensemaking, the ability to ask generative questions and the skills to have the conversations that result. What kind of challenge are we facing? Is this about how we organise ourselves? Or is it structural? Do we need to experiment or can we plan a response? What is undiscussable or taboo that we are avoiding? What might we need to be more candid about, and with whom?...
These are the edges teams come up against.
Developing skills that (actually) make a difference
There is no silver bullet for team development, rather it requires individuals and the team as a whole to stretch, to learn to move together like a dance troupe rather than a crowd of individuals.
We work with you to develop the skills that enable you to make better moves, and to start talking about what otherwise would remain hidden and bend you out of shape.
This means:
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Dialogue skills, learning how to talk with others without getting into defensive stances and what to do when you feel yourself going there
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Understanding why psychological safety means creating the conditions for interpersonal risk taking, not a sterile environment devoid of risk
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Increasing awareness of power dynamics, both within the team and outside where they may be impacting what is happening
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Core relational skills that may need attention, whether that be listening, sharing observations/feedback, self awareness, or confidence
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Attending to alignment issues, both relational and operational
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Understanding what needs to happen if you are to have genuine accountability between people
The key: Building Collective Muscle
We help you move from being a collection of individuals to a team better able to work with the tensions that arise in and around them in service of creating value for colleagues, clients and other stakeholders
Are you ready to take the floor together?
"If your meetings aren't functioning well, useful and enjoyable, why aren't you making them better?"
“Operating in a psychologically safe environment is not about being ‘nice’ and is not about lowering performance standards.
It is about holding each other to account, challenging each other and sharing with each other even the wildest of dreams & how they could achieve them together.”
Professor Sophia Jowett
Unless you do the 'work proper' as a team, don't expect things to change.
“Steve has the ability to blend coaching, team coaching and facilitation into one smooth experience.”
Nick Beazley
John Lewis Partnership
