How can you ensure that teams are working at their best?

Do team members have the opportunity to think about how they work as both individuals and as a team?

Are team members encouraged to give feedback to each other and openly discuss issues or proposed changes?

Key to becoming part of an extraordinary team is for individuals to know themselves first – what strengths and preferred ways of working can each member offer to the team? M.J. Consulting use both Belbin team types and the MBTI to help individuals understand their uniqueness, the qualities they can bring to a team and the challenges and differences they may face.

It is only when individuals understand themselves that work can be done to improve the performance of the team from OK to extraordinary.

The key areas for developing extraordinary teams include:

Team leaders and team members are asked to review how the team operates across a number of areas ranging from planning and communication to dealing with change and the role of the team leader.

Results from the health-check are used to identify areas where the team need to concentrate more effort and as the basis of any development actions.

The use of questionnaires will also allow us to highlight any difference in viewpoints of team members and team leaders and explore how these need to be recognized and addressed to improve team spirit and performance.

We offer a range of team building workshops to help newly formed teams and team development workshops for established teams and teams with specific issues. By working in partnership with you we ensure that our team programmes are both fun and meaningful.

Team members are asked to review their own way of working and consider those of their colleagues.

Teams share real work issues and challenge these through activity based learning.

We look at what is happening now and what needs to be different to raise their performance, not as individuals, but as a team.

Linked to the team health-check, we look at what behaviours and actions make a successful team.

Team members are asked to honestly rate their own performance as individuals and as a team against the key behaviours.

We will help teams to identify what they need to do differently and challenge the way things are done now. Teams will produce their own contracts for change and agree how they will give feedback on good / unacceptable examples of team work.

A toolkit designed specifically for team leaders and supervisors.

We will work with you to develop any additional skills required to use the toolkit and provide feedback for team leaders on best use of the activities and exercises contained in it.

The toolkit contains a range of activities for team leaders to use on themselves and their team along with a number of key points and checklists for them to remember.

Teams who have a clear understanding of what needs to happen to ensure immediate and long term improvements will need to have a mechanism for providing feedback.

Feedback that is given in a positive and constructive manner is a key component for continuous development and improvement.

We will work with the team to reinforce the view that it is essential provide this feedback as without it, team members will not know if they are working in the newly agreed manner.

We will work with you to build on the concept that it is OK to give constructive feedback to both colleagues and managers.

Building Extraordinary Teams

Team Health Check

Team Building Workshops

What Makes A Successful Team?

Team Leaders Toolkit

Creating A Feedback Culture