Team Development – What is it and how can it help me?

Team development looks at the way in which team members work together to achieve better results – for themselves, for the team, and for the organization.  It encourages people to step back from focusing on the task, and to think about how they relate to each other.  By improving relationships between team members, we can also improve the results of the team.

What is team development?

Team development takes an intact team – a group of people who already work together – and helps them to look at how they work.  People can spend years working together, and still not really know each other.  They are so focused on the task at work that they forget that they are dealing with other people.  As a result, all sorts of problems can arise that can get in the way of good performance because they have not been dealt with.

When we understand what makes people tick, we can work better with them.  Team working takes a group of people who already work together and gives them a shared experience on which to build excellent performance in the future.

As a result of a team building experience, individuals will go back to work with a better knowledge of how their fellow team members think, feel, and work.  They will also form for themselves a clear picture of the purpose of their team, and how that fits with the aims of the organization as a whole.

How does it work?

Threshold spends time with you, the client, discussing the current situation.  We will ask you what you would like to change about how your teams currently work, and will then design a programme to address the issues that you have raised.  The programme itself will include a mixture of theory and practical tasks.  It will also include plenty of time to review the experiences in order to draw out the learning, and to look for ways to apply it back at the workplace.

It may also be helpful for us to meet the team members themselves before designing the programme.  As part of the planning for the programme, we can also carry out a survey to find out what team members think about their team and how it works.

To be most effective, team working should be more than just a "one-hit wonder".  In other words, we can also provide support to participants after their programme, in the form of follow-up meetings or one-to-one coaching.

What are the outcomes and benefits of team working?

• clear vision: a picture of why the team exists and what it wants to achieve
• shared responsibility: all team members are responsible for the team's results
• increased commitment: both to the team's work and to each other
• improved problem-solving and decision-making: the team leader does not necessarily have all the answers
• better communication: supports trust and honesty within the team