Improve communication and collaboration between teams

Situation

Within the three teams are 21 employees, with varying tenures. Many of the team members are new to the business area. The teams are also geographically speaking, dispersed.

Currently, their reputation is the ‘wicketkeeper’, who keep information from the wider Council, and the wider business doesn’t really know what they do. There was an opportunity for the teams to not only improve how they work within their team and across the 3 teams, but also to prompt what they do and communicate more effectively with the wider Council (e.g. translating technical information in a way that is understood and bought into by other stakeholders).

Objectives

• Improve individual’s understanding of themselves
• Improve the understanding of their team members strengths and capabilities
• Improve how the 3 teams communicate/connect/work together better with the goal to be a high performing team
• Improving how they discuss issues/mistakes within and outside their team

Challenge

The environment they work in is very fast paced, changes quickly and different to other areas of the Council. They are dealing with complex problems with political implications if mistakes are made. They have access to highly sensitive and confidential information, but with this comes high responsibility. You make mistakes and they are known.

The challenge is to create an environment where employees can thrive and become a high performing team. The first step of this was to create a greater awareness of their own communication style as well as their team mates. Then it was about learning how best to interact and engage with each other.

Another challenge that People Solutions needed to address was ensuring that all of the sessions fitted in with their daily work schedule.

Solution

People Solutions recommended an MBTI session for each of the teams and a session with all 3 teams combined. MBTI stands for Myers Briggs Type Indicator, it is a well-known assessment which provides individuals with an understanding of their own personality type and the team’s preferences and ways of working.

The objectives of the workshop included (but are not limited to):

• Developing a deeper understanding of own preferences and working styles;
• Gaining an appreciation of the preferences and styles of others;
• Becoming aware of preferences for taking in information and decision making;
• Discovering individual and team problem solving styles;
• Fostering an exchange of viewpoints;
• Discovering and practicing better ways of working together; and
• Developing action plans for individual and team growth.

People Solutions assisted the Council in communicating the MBTI workshops to all participants, with information such as how it links to team building day, purpose, what will happen, who will be involved and when, how information will be used, outcomes. We also spoke to each individual to discuss this assessment and gain their perspective on their team and expectations/concerns/outcomes they desire for the half day.

After this team sessions, People Solutions feedback overall themes and propose recommendation for the business to take forward.

Result

The majority of the participants who completed a survey a couple of months after the team sessions agreed the workshops helped them understand their team members, to provide strategies to speak up and discuss issues with others, how to adapt their style to different people.

Participants were also positive about the MBTI workshops and the People Solutions facilitator and the leader was very positive about the outcome and the participant

Further, one of the teams also engaged People Solutions for additional team session to further develop and implement the action plan they had created.

Speak to our team today about using psychological diagnostics to develop your organisation.  Learn more about our organisational development capabilities.