Team Development
Good leaders understand the importance of maintaining high performance, morale and motivation in teams and in creating the conditions where performance, creativity, innovation and harmony flourish.Underpinning our Team Development Approach
Medicology team development is devised around the 10 Facets of Team Effectiveness, although different facets can be utilised and focused upon in many different ways.
10 Facets of Team Effectiveness
The 10 Facets model is embedded in all Medicology team development programmes and activities, ensuring that whatever we do is consistent with developing enhanced levels of team effectiveness, productivity and harmony.
10 Facets of Team Effectiveness
The following sections will help you understand the 10 facets and their interrelationship with each other.
1. Common Purpose & Direction
Teams work effectively when everyone knows clearly what the team is there to do, how it is to be done and who will do what and why (roles & responsibilities). Common direction & purpose aligns activities, reduces waste and conflict and generates team identity, support and spirit. In many respects, it both defines and drivers all other facets.
2. Shared Values & Beliefs
Often term ‘mission’, many teams fail to appreciate that whether they have a ‘mission statement’ on the wall or not, they consist of a collection of values, beliefs and behaviours that collective make up the team. By developing a better understanding of these, teams can start to define what serves them best, how to most effectively manage differences in values & beliefs, where tension is occurring and why, as well as how to develop cohesion and shared vision.
3. Appropriate Structure, Power & Control
Different people like to me managed and lead in different ways. Some respond best to a very directive style (just tell me what to do) and others to a more inclusive, less formal style. By examining the prevailing default styles, matched against the teams preferences, a best approach can be devised that serves all needs. When the style is established, teams can then look at their more structural and process elements of management and control, adapting these to enable the team to function most effectively.
4. Understanding People
You will often hear phrases such as “people are strange”, reflecting that people that are different from us tend to be tarnished with the ‘strange’ brush. Understanding people and their psychological makeup is a fundamental factor in contributing to a harmonious and productive team environment. Coupled to an effective development programme, understanding people often involves the use of psychological profiling tools such as the Medicology Behavioural Drivers Questionnaire (BDQ), Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI).
5. Self Awareness
It is one thing understanding people but a whole new ball game developing insight into yourself and the impact you have on those around you. Strong teams develop mechanisms to allow feedback to both be given without fear and received within the true spirit in which it is intended. More formalised self awareness can be developed through 360 degree appraisal processes, linked to development & appraisal to enhance personal flexibility and adaptability.
6. Managing & Harnessing Difference
Strong teams use difference to unite and excel, whereas weaker teams allow it to divide. What’s important in a productive team environment is that difference in all its facets is understood and utilised to best advantage. That could mean perhaps giving the audit functions to someone with a natural strength in attention to detail or committing to develop a particular skill in someone when this is absent from the team but important for success.
7. Effective Interactions
The conduit for team functioning and the root of most conflict is communication and interaction. High performance teams actively manage this in many ways, from assessing and determining what communication is needed where, to considering the manner of communications, how individuals communicate with each other, running effective & productive meetings and developing individual, respectful and purposeful communication skills.
8. Morale & Motivation
Morale and motivation have long been linked directly to team performance and productivity. High performing teams appreciate its importance and use it as a performance ‘climate indicator’ or lead measure. When motivation and morale ebb, it’s never long before performance slips too and therefore measuring morale and the factors contributing to it becomes an important component of an effective performance management system. Conflict develops readily when morale drops too and therefore maintaining it remains a mainstay of conflict prevention.
9. Respect & Trust
Linked firmly to managing and harnessing difference, strong teams exhibit significant respect and demonstrate considerable trust in their fellow team members. The combination of acceptance of and reliance on fellow team members breeds team commitment and support, along with a greater sense of togetherness. Highly effective teams understand the factors that lead to trust and what respect means to each individual.
10. Conflict Management & Resolution
Conflict is a pervasive, debilitating disease with a high treatment cost and strong teams recognise that there is no place for it in high performance environments. The primary strategy is prevention involving all other facets, but where prevention hasn’t been enough, swift action is necessary to ensure that it doesn’t spread. The best teams know how to spot the early symptoms and then move proactively to restore harmony and strong working relationships.
