When Teams are Effective & High functioning… the organization’s people work together like a strong spine- every part aligned and moving in a seamless fashion. How you recognize it: differences in perceptions about goals, roles, and process are shared openly, attempts are made at understanding differences and finding common ground, adequate time and energy is spent on how to best work together, conflict is used constructively and as a means to achieve better decisions, and teams are working in service to larger organizational goals. Common Challenges to Team Effectiveness: • Teams that are newly formed or have added new members or leaders often struggle with sorting out the “noise” associated with different expectations and ideas about goals, roles, work styles, and procedures. • Teams that are action-oriented, but lack a greater shared purpose are common -the result is often wasted energy, a lack of solid results, and de-motivated talent. • Team cultures commonly do not cultivate practices that sustain a foundation of trust, allow for healthy use of conflict, generate commitment, reinforce accountability, and foster a focus on results. How we help you meet the challenges: Because each of the above challenges requires a different solution or set of solutions- 1) Our first step is to work with you to identify just what you need, what your organization is ready for, how it should be delivered, and how you can measure its effectiveness. 2) We then get right to the solutions. Team effectiveness work may include: group process facilitation, assessment, training and workshops, coaching and consulting, strategic planning, and design and implementation of practices and processes that foster greater team alignment. Whenever possible, we work to transfer diagnostic, facilitative, and other teaming capabilities directly into the team and to provide solid tools to help: identify where alignment opportunities exist, how to de-personalize when teams are stuck, and how to employ methods for creating high-impact plans and commitments around teaming behavior that can be clearly linked to business objectives. 3) Just like cars, teams will invariably need tune-ups along the way. We help you to build regular and seamless maintenance into your teamwork.