TEAM DEVELOPMENT

Team Development

Team or not Team?

Nowadays, the term “team” is often used almost exclusively.
However, it makes much more sense to differentiate between groups or working groups and teams. It is by no means the case that tasks or task packages are always and best assigned to “teams”.

• On the one hand, the nature of the task may speak against this
• And secondly, the composition of the people who are suddenly supposed to be a team can speak against it – there are also people who are less capable of working in a team and are nevertheless excellent experts in their field.

If the task or project seems suitable to “set up” a team, it is therefore important to ideally put together the right people.
When accompanied by Red Thread / Roter Faden Consulting , this can be done very well by using two inclination profiles:

⇒ TYPUS
⇒ TMS (Team Management Profile)  

can be used to find the right role assignments for subtasks, for the roles within a project  and – generally – for forming a great team basis.

How does team development work?

When a group of people comes together to form a team and work together as such for a longer period of time, it makes a lot of sense to develop it.

The most important thing here is the fundamental recognition of and respect for the other person and their strengths and inclinations.
The above-mentioned approaches (TYPUS and TMS) and the systems and philosophies behind them are ideally suited to generating a double benefit here:

• The development of the team

• And the development of those involved
  

What does team development involve?

In the so-called team phases according to Tuckman, the following development phases can be can be distinguished:

• Forming
• Storming
• Norming 
• Performing 
• Adjourning

… i.e. the formation of the team, the discussion and sometimes first conflicts with each other and then the finding of a common framework in order to grow into a high- performance team.
The last part was not included in the original model, but is nevertheless important:
Namely, the formal termination process of teamwork.

Not all of these phases necessarily have to be completed in such a prominent way.
See also “Team development with the red thread“.

What is the difference between group coaching and team coaching?

Group coaching is about a number of people working on issues where there is little overlap or the need for direct cooperation.
In this case, coaching will focus on supporting the individual group members and strengthening the interfaces and awareness of the company’s goals.

In the case of team coaching, the development of the team with all its interactions is a strong additional factor – the focus is then on the direct cooperation between two or more team members.

Why team development?

The question is of course justified. Nevertheless, there are numerous hurdles – especially at the beginning – which can lead to a team getting “stuck” in the middle of its development: There is a risk of getting caught up in conflicts that don’t necessarily need to take place.

Of course, it can also happen that it only becomes apparent later on that a team member is not at all suited to the topic at hand or that conflicts arise that have nothing directly to do with the teamwork.

Team development with the Red Thread

As mentioned above, the basic prerequisite is to determine whether there is a “team” at all and whether team building is “necessary”. If this is the case, then the following approach has proven to be successful with Roter Faden / ( Red Thread) Consulting:

• Clarification of the issue, the situation and the objective (with the client)
• Individual interviews with the team members
• (If possible or depending on agreement) profiles of inclination(s) with the team members
• Kick-off workshops on the introduction (Team Management System and TYPUS if applicable) and on the topic of “real contact”
• Everyday integration, possibly with implementation coaching
• Follow-up workshop for consolidation  
• Accompanying coaching in the team process for further development

As in most fields, the work of Prof. Wolfgang Mewes with his “bottleneck-focused strategy” is also an important basis here:
The approach is always constraint- and strengths-oriented.

What does that mean?

Together, we look at where the “most burning constraint” for the team currently lies (insofar as this is within the team’s immediate sphere of influence), at the same time, which of the team’s strengths should be further supported and, thirdly, which measures and any supplementary ‘tools’ are helpful for the team.

This can soon result in a double benefit:

→ The team is sustainably strengthened and is increasingly able to help itself further

→ Each individual member of the team also benefits, including personally

This can make work – and teamwork – really enjoyable and fun.

Communication

What does communication in a company involve and mean?

The term comes from the Latin communicato, which means ‘notice’ or ‘message’.
Messages and information of various kinds are exchanged in different ways (writing, speaking, ‘electronically’).

The phenomenon of communication is very complex:
After all, there are always a wide variety of communication partners facing each other – sometimes several: Everyone has their own “black box”, i.e. they bring their own preconceptions and ways of communicating with them.

This also includes the question of whether someone communicates predominantly at the factual, relationship, self-disclosure or appeal level and through which “ears” (factual, relationship, self-disclosure or appeal level, self-disclosure or appeal ear) the other person “hears” this.
Even a mismatch in this area can severely disrupt communication and generate an internal judging and also projections.

What is verbal and non-verbal communication in the workplace?

This is the way in which people (predominantly) communicate at work.

Verbal communication includes the spoken word and its content, as well as intonation, pitch and emphasis.

Non-verbal communication includes gestures, facial expressions and overall body posture when speaking or responding. 

Which are the benefits of communication training and under what conditions?

Communication training can bring a lot of benefits: 

• Better understanding of yourself
• Understanding the other person
• Understanding and grasping how communication works
• Change of perspective
• Potentially strong contribution to corporate culture
• Significant increase in effectiveness
• More enjoyment at work
• Better focus of own energies
• Personal development
  

… but only under certain conditions …

• Involvement of all levels – don’t do it if you don’t want to be trained as a leader yourself!
• Interest and good will of all participants
• Set clear, verifiable goals and state motives beforehand
• All participants are willing to accept new insights
• After a reasonable implementation period, there is an evaluation and in-depth training, which in turn should focus on the ‘bottlenecks’ that have arisen

Communication training with the Red Thread

Under the above-mentioned preconditions, Red Thread Consulting first looks at the current state of affairs.

A constraint- and target analysis is carried out together.
This is very often supplemented by preliminary interviews with all those involved and an understanding of their perspective.

Then and only then do we start planning specific workshops, their content and processes.

After the central workshops have been held, there are follow-up discussions with all those involved about their objectives and any new bottlenecks / constraints that may have arisen.

It is advisable to schedule in-depth training sessions after a certain period of time.

If communication training is seen as a piecemeal approach to “doctoring” something that is not working as quickly as possible, then it is like “plasters and aspirin”:
There is a very high risk that motivation will be lower after a while than before.
Thus it does not make sense and leads to burning your money uselessly. 

However, if all levels participate and it is then measurably perceived that all this really leads to changes, then communication training is very worthwhile and can generate strong changes.

Roter Faden / Red Thread Consulting works successfully and particularly likes to work with the TYPUS profile, with the Team Management Profile (TMS(R)) according to Maguerison/McCann, Team Performance Model by Drexler/Sibbet, with the so-called Honest Communication according to Gopal Norbert Klein; and various tools by Schulz von Thun as well as – if it is more about creative connections – with the 6 Thinking Hats Method according to Dr. Edward de Bono.