Team and Board Development
Success in today’s connected world depends on our ability to work together. Even the best or most highly motivated leaders are easily outpaced by those who master the art of collaboration. Yet CEOs rarely devote enough time to building their team, leading to very few executive teams reaching their full potential.
Senior Team Events
Most Team assignments involve the development and facilitation of one or more bespoke team events. Typically these are designed to achieve specific objectives or address critical issues that are affecting the performance of the team. Events themselves are therefore preceded by comprehensive data gathering to ensure the right activities are included to engage participants and deliver the desired results.
Team assignments may be tailored to meet needs such as:
- Supporting a new leader get to know their team quickly and build alignment
- Establishing common ways of working following a reorganisation or the reallocation of roles and responsibilities
- Accelerating the integration of new members within a team
- External facilitation to support the development of a new strategy
- Identifying ways to raise performance in response to a sudden change in circumstance
- To strengthen the team, ensure it is aligned, or explore alternative responses to an unexpected external threat
- Providing an opportunity for teams to reconnect and realign midway through change programmes
- Addressing differences in style or priority that are undermining performance
- Building the capability of a team to release the leader to concentrate on other matters (e.g. investor relations)
As well as using a range of original activities and exercises Talent 4 Transformation is free to select from the full range of individual and team profiling tools available on the market. These include psychometric questionnaires and proven off the shelf exercises. Prework may also be provided to ensure that maximum value is achieved within any face to face or online time.
Team Coaching Programmes
Often a more comprehensive programme of support is more appropriate than a one-off event. As an extension to the running of individual Team Events Talent 4 Transformation also offers extended Team Coaching programmes designed to maximise the performance of senior leadership teams over a period of six to twelve months. These programmes build sustainable capability and provide ongoing support through periods of challenge or change.
Team Coaching programmes also offer a way to build on initial team events and embed the understanding, behaviours and commitment required to increase team performance.
Team Coaching Programmes typically involve a series of events, with each session focused on providing tools and exercises that can be applied immediately. By providing the programme over a regular series of events teams are supported over a longer timeframe allowing for deeper issues to be resolved and new behaviours to be embedded . Individual events can also be tailored to use real issues relevant to the team at that time. The sessions are typically delivered on a monthly or quarterly basis and are supported by pre-work and three personal 1:1 sessions with each participant.
Our programmes are underpinned by experience and structured around carefully selected models, including concepts from Patrick Lencioni’s book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team as well as other simple and practical tools and techniques. Our premise is that once teams have clear goals each of the five factors established by Lencioni can be identified, explored and developed, whilst at the same time good rigour and practice can be embedded into teams.
Our approach
Our approach to building High Performing Teams is based on solid theory and research delivered in a down to earth and practical way. We know that senior leaders prefer activity and getting on with things rather than discussing feelings and emotions.
However, this can get in the way of teams addressing some important interpersonal aspects of team dynamics required for sustained performance. We therefore use our skill and experience to craft programmes that carefully balance the need for engagement with practical exercises that get to the heart of underlying issues.
We also understand that a level of tension within senior teams is inevitable and even desirable to drive performance. We therefore clearly position our work as being focused on improving the performance of teams and organisations.
This involves us working closely with leaders and their teams in order to understand their challenges and then tailoring programmes around their objectives. We use simple, effective models that busy leaders can easily see the value of and apply.
Often we work with organisations going through change or on a growth journey. Important themes in these situations include alignment behind clear goals, innovation, establishing trust and ‘bringing the outside in’ (i.e. embedding customer focus). We introduce such ideas clearly and concisely in a way that is relevant to individual teams.
Our practical approach enables us to win the confidence of senior leaders and earns us the right to raise underlying interpersonal issues that might otherwise have been considered too soft or delicate to be addressed.
Therefore our approach can be summarised as follows:
- Practical – we focus on the factors that drive performance in a pragmatic business focused way, rather than take a conceptual or ‘soft and fluffy’ approach
- Tailored – we prepare individual events to suit the needs of teams based on careful analysis
- Underpinned by solid theory and experience – we draw on an extensive library of exercises and tools developed by business psychologists and refined through use with senior teams over many years
- Courageous – we know the factors that drive team performance and are prepared to provide challenge when necessary
- Supportive – we are sensitive to the emotions at play within teams and take a constructive approach when managing delicate issues
Why Choose Talent 4 Transformation
- Deep team facilitation and leadership expertise – Facilitation completed by a fully qualified and registered Chartered Occupational Psychologist
- Commercial experience – Over 25 years’ experience facilitating leadership team across a variety of sectors
- Use of high quality tools, models and exercises – We are able to bring an independent perspective to ensure the right tools are used in the right situation
- Outcome focus – We design our team programmes to deliver results rather than simply provide a warm experience
- Inspirational and engaging participant experience – We achieve so much more when we are having fun, and so invest significant energy in making sure that events are enjoyable as well as functional
- Flexible solutions – We are experienced at taking our proven methodologies and applying them in a variety of contexts to meet your individual technical or practical requirements
John has played a crucial role in helping me to build a strong and effective Executive Team at Midcounties. This has included helping me to select the right high calibre leaders to join us from outside through our final stage recruitment process, as well as accelerating the development of the team through a combination of individual coaching and team facilitation. John’s friendly, supportive and professional approach means that he is well respected and has helped us to quickly integrate new and long serving individuals into a united leadership team. I have personally valued John’s support to me as CEO and would highly recommend him.
John worked with me to create a programme to develop the unity and effectiveness of the Universities Executive Group. John was flexible and provided an engaging solution that drew on solid theory in a practical way. John was also highly credible with our Executive Team
John helped me to develop my team and break down silos at a crucial point for the Coop. He demonstrated strong credibility in surfacing and helping us work though significant challenges that had been holding us back for some time. John’s work set us up for much greater collaboration and teamworking which has provided the basis for sustained performance.
Having worked with John for the past two years there is no question I would recommend him, and I have already done so within Babcock and to the DST Board. John’s approach is professional, engaging and effective – very good quality
John’s ability, to read people, ‘name the elephant’ and interject small pieces of relevant psychology in the facilitated discussion helped me to form an effective leadership team. The team sessions enabled us to define a mission, to produce clear roles and responsibilities and agree accountability for the team as a whole, not just for their own departments. In terms of ROI the money invested in the programme has already been recouped many times over. As a direct result of our work with John and the closer teamwork this made possible, we have identified savings of £1.3 million within this year’s budget (Approx. 10%).
Through a series of short team and individual development sessions, over the course of 18 months John helped our Executive team to communicate openly, with greater focus and strategically. Bringing in just the right amount of theory and coaching at the right time. John pitched it just right for our organisation – so it was relevant, practical, interesting and easily implemented; a difficult balance, brilliantly well met.