The following is an example of one of my team development consulting projects. I was asked to coach a manager and his team for a period of six months. The presenting issues were team conflict, lack of cohesiveness and lack of communication between team members.
The first phase of the project was to interview the manager and each team member to assess their view of the team dynamics, what was working and not working, what were organizational issues and what were issues among team members.
Phase two involved providing feedback to the team and manager from the assessment and together developing a team plan. The agreed upon strategy was for me to meet monthly with the team and have individual coaching sessions with the manager.
Specific issues that were addressed and resolved through this process included: meeting management, valuing different styles, strategies for resolving conflict, building trust, setting norms, opening communications to be direct, giving and receiving feedback constructively.
As a result of this work, team projects were now completed on time, the manager spent less time resolving team conflicts, the overall work environment became more harmonious, and there was a marked increase in resource sharing among team members.
