Team Development

Executive summary

Team Development

Team development can be stated as the action or process of causing a group of people to work together effectively as a team, especially by means of activities and events designed to increase motivation and promote cooperation. For twenty years, Ms. Matteson has been working with teams to do just that—successfully increasing motivation and promoting cooperation and improving performance amongst hundreds of teams. Whether a team is in the forming, storming, norming or performing stages, Ms. Matteson provides tools and techniques to get to the next level. Team building is one of the foundations of organizational development that can be applied to groups such as project teams, leadership teams, intact teams, cross-functional teams, and virtual teams. Team building is one of the most widely used group-development activities in organizations today. Of all organizational activities, one study found team-development to have the strongest effect (versus financial measures) for improving organizational performance. Recent meta-analyses show that team-development activities, including team building and team training, improve both a team’s objective performance and a team’s subjective ratings. Our services for teams vary as much as the teams with which we work. It is our philosophy that there is no off-the-shelf teambuilding program that will fill all the needs of any given team, yet there is a process that we follow that allows us to provide the most effective tools and exercises to address a number of needs. Often, there is disagreement in understanding the priorities for developing a team. Whether a team is in the forming, storming, norming or performing stage, we offer experiences to help them get to the next level. Some team leaders are concerned with such problems as improving workflow, setting priorities or holding more effective meetings. Others see the prime purpose of teambuilding as improving relationships between team members. Whatever the presenting issue is, we work closely with team leaders and team members to diagnose the true issues and coach them and their team to success. We also know that team leaders provide one perspective and team members provide another. We gather as much data as possible both from team leaders and team members prior to conducting a session.

Almost all team building efforts must do the following: 1) Set goals or priorities (including mission and vision), 2) analyze or allocate the way work is performed (role clarification), 3) examine the way a group is working, its processes such as decision making and norms, and 4) examine the relationships among the people doing the work. Our services are for teams in any stage of formation. For example, an existing team gets a new leader or key team member, a new team is being formed, a team is experiencing difficulty in meeting its goals, a team with interpersonal conflicts, a team that just needs a boost, and many other scenarios.

Service Methodology

From the first client interaction to the final close of a project, our service and methodology is tailored, client-focused, responsive, efficient and effective. Often, there is disagreement in understanding the priorities for developing a team. We work closely with team leaders and team members in diagnosing the major issues and coaching them along the way. Our methodology starts with the team leader and expands to the team members to assess, understand, and diagnose the situation before recommending any action. It starts with an in-depth interview of the team leader and other key stakeholders and progresses to interviews of each team member. Once the data is analyzed and the diagnosis is complete, it is shared with the team leader and key stakeholders for discussion and alignment. Key objectives