Leadership Team Development: Five Behaviors That Build a Successful Team in Independence, MO

Improve Your Team's Productivity and Capability With This Team Training and Team Assessment Program in the Independence area

Iconic NFL coach Vince Lombardi once said, "Individual commitment to a group effort — that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work." It’s a stellar line for two reasons: It addresses the need for dedication on the part individuals in order for a team to succeed, and it touches on how far-reaching those achievements can truly be. Whether you already have seasons upon seasons of wins under your belt or just a hunger to be better, a customized leadership team development program can be the turning point your team needs to reach the next level.

What Does an Effective Team Look Like?

An effective team is a collaborative unit that's able to work toward a common goal successfully. If your team is dysfunctional in any way, you'll see a failure to meet your goals or a delay in meeting them, as well as fractured relationships and non-productive interaction between team members.

Turnkey Coaching and Development Solution's team development program focusing on the Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team provides a highly useful metric by which to evaluate your own work team or leadership team.

• Do the members of your team trust one another? Do they communicate with transparency and honesty, or do individuals try to protect themselves, often at the expense of others on the team? Once your team members are able to be vulnerable with each other, they can provide the support needed to reach common goals.
• Do the members of your team thrive in an atmosphere of healthy and supportive conflict? Are they able to address ideas constructively and honestly? Teams that are afraid of conflict often hinder their ability to create something exciting and to solve intractable problems, whereas teams that have learned to listen to the alternative points of view that arise during healthy conflict can move on to constructive solutions.
• Are the members of your team afraid to commit to decisions? Do they hesitate to come to a conclusion or even to state a clear opinion, perhaps out of fear that they'll be censured or mocked? If your leadership team has all the data and experience it needs, but they can't reach a decision, no plan of action can be executed.
• Does your team hold one another accountable for measurable results? Do they meet deadlines effectively, or do you hear countless excuses as to why an action item couldn't be accomplished? Team members that trust each other, that have explored all the options together, and that have committed to a clear and actionable plan are able to encourage each other toward completion because they share a desire for mutual success.
• Does your team have its eyes on the final goal? Do the members of your leadership team (or cross-functional team) know what they want to accomplish individually and collectively? Once you have the fundamental team development building blocks in place, your team can achieve the results they once only dreamed of.

Turning Problems Into Strengths

William B. Given, Jr., the author of books on management and business leadership, wrote, "There are few, if any, jobs in which ability alone is sufficient. Needed, also, are loyalty, sincerity, enthusiasm and team play."

Our staff training consultants and team development experts try to turn persistent problems into strengths and provide tools that can carry a team forward and help them be consistently productive, efficient and, ultimately, profitable. Each team member has his own preferences and personality, and our team-building solution aims to deliver concrete solutions that can be implemented easily. In addition, employees seem to desire these types of leadership team and work team development programs. In one survey, conducted as part of a three-year research project at Middlesex University's Institute for Work Based Learning, a shocking 74 percent of respondents felt they were not reaching their full potential at work and would have welcomed more training opportunities.

How Can You Evaluate Your Team?

Your team development program must include a way to assess whether your development efforts are working. The Harvard Business Review recommends paying attention to the team's output and the ability of the team to collaborate, as well as individual assessments of each of the team members.

The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team Progress Report provides a template for just such an assessment, allowing you to pinpoint areas of improvement to celebrate and build on as well as those ways in which your team still needs to improve.

If a team is truly working together in a relationship of mutual accountability, the Progress Report makes that clear. It also shows obstacles to development and paves the way for team members to assess their own collaboration.

How to Improve Your Team-Training Program

Here are a few of the things we emphasize as we custom-design a team-training and development program for your organization.

• Trust
  Remember the ropes courses you did in summer camp? Typically, they required a team to work together to solve a series of physical challenges. For example, the team had to find a way to get every member over a 10-foot wall without the use of ladders, ropes or outside help. And then there were the dreaded "trust falls," where each team member took a turn falling backward from an elevated platform, trusting their teammates below to catch them.
  
  For most people, such activities can be frustrating — terrifying, even, for newly formed teams not yet comfortable with each other — but they are undeniably effective at building trust quickly. While our training programs might not have your team scaling walls or catching each other in midair, we design similarly powerful exercises (often focused upon real business challenges) to establish strong, enduring bonds of trust.
• Conflict Resolution
  Fear of conflict can plague a team and hold it back from its potential. What often happens is that one or two alphas emerge and dominate team discussions, and the others are afraid to challenge them or offer alternative viewpoints. As a result, potentially great ideas get left off the table for fear of rocking the boat. Our training programs teach teams to rechannel their fear of conflict into respectful, constructive discussions where every member feels their ideas are valued. This allows a robust marketplace of ideas to flourish within your team.

How Turnkey Coaching & Development Solutions Can Help

Our master trainers can design a team-building program to fit your company's specific needs. We do not have events or local classrooms where managers can attend a day or a week of training with other managers. Instead, we consult with you and learn what your goals are. Then, we create a training program from scratch. We help you cultivate effective teams no matter what the size or department - from leadership and decision-making teams, to operational work groups, to special project teams, the model is a powerful tool for transforming the culture and improving the team's results.

The Team Development Program That Moves Your Team Forward

The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team leadership team training and development program is tailored to meet your organization's very specific and unique needs and culture. Through training, coaching and team development, you can facilitate trust, strengthen your team members’ ability to deal with conflicts, and their collaborative skills, all of which come together to produce the results you want your executive and work teams to achieve.

When you're able to harness the talents and personalities of your team members to work together cohesively toward a common goal, everyone benefits. Imagine your team making smart decisions together, tapping into each person's special abilities, and staying focused cooperatively to get results. That's the kind of teamwork that provides your organization with the ability to compete at its best.

The constituent parts of anything — a vehicle, recipe or composition — determine its efficiency and success. Some components have major operational roles while others perform smaller essential tasks, but every element counts, and all of them require regular maintenance. The same rules apply within businesses. When you provide your work teams and cross-functional teams with well-planned team development courses, you nurture individual professional growth and increase company prosperity in general.