Customized Leadership Team Development Programs Create Stronger Businesses in West Jordan, UT

Improve Your Team Training Strategy With a Custom Team Building & Team Assessement Retreat in the West Jordan area

Successful companies are run by cohesive teams that work together to achieve the same goals. That requires trust, excellent communication skills and a give-and-take flow that doesn’t come natural to every person or group. Our team development programs help work groups understand and practice the behaviors that put these traits in action, and we even provide assessment tools so teams can continuously gauge their progress and work to create an ever more positive, productive culture.

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.

In 2012, Google began a new research project in team development, which it dubbed Project Aristotle. The Googlers studied 180 productive, effective teams but couldn't figure out what they had in common. Was it hierarchical structure? No. Did the team members have compatible backgrounds or personality types? Sometimes, but not always. Were all the team members friends who hung out together after work? Again, sometimes.

The Google researchers drilled deeper and deeper, finally discovering the one element that all great teams share: psychological safety.

According to Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson, psychological safety is the "shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking." To reach a point of psychological safety, trust is vital, as is the ability to disagree in a healthy manner.
The Project Aristotle researchers then looked at how psychological safety manifests itself in healthy teams, highlighting two defining factors that show up in the give-and-take of the top productive teams.

Social Sensitivity. In top teams, all the members are honest about their emotional states and moods, and they're considerate of each other in this regard.
Turn-taking. All members of an effective team end up participating to the same extent. This is especially crucial when a team is dealing with conflicts.
When psychological safety exists, individual team members are free to bring their very best contributions to the table. The team then becomes greater than the sum of its individual parts, and it is able to deal with conflict in a healthy manner and stay focused on its task.

Rediscover your workmates and redefine your company’s competitive advantage with built-to-order leadership team development programs from Turnkey Coaching Solutions. We look forward to learning more about how we may serve your team: 281-469-4244

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.

Working Efficiently With Remote Teams

In many companies, teams exist within departments, and team members usually work in the same buildings. That type of setup isn't universal, and remote teams have become an alternative to traditional in-house groups. Maybe your team holds remote meetings via services like Skype and communicates largely via email, SMS, and project boards like Basecamp or Asana, for example.

Virtual teams face a unique set of challenges as they work toward shared goals. Still, according to MIT's Sloan School of Management, remote teams can outperform on-location teams if they have the following task-based and socio-emotional systems in place:

- Tangible Feedback

Because they work remotely, virtual personnel are particularly prone to feeling out of the loop; indeed, some work-from-home executives are forgotten when in-office staff plan events and meetings. To get the most out of your remote team, make sure you give each member regular personalized feedback. Calls and emails are fine, but videoconferencing is particularly effective because it puts you face to face with your manager. When remote managers feel appreciated and supported, they work productively as individuals and within the team.

- Project-Related Communication

Email might seem the easiest way to ask questions and handle feedback, but countless back-and-forth exchanges make queries and suggestions really hard to follow up. Instead, try hosting discussions on an online bulletin board or a well-constructed forum to streamline your virtual conversation. Predesignated hashtags make specific subjects easier to keep track of, so team members feel less frustration and more enthusiasm about the projects they're involved in.

- Remote Organizational Tools

Consider building a platform for your team on Basecamp, where shared calendars and goals help keep your project on schedule. You can create tasks, set deadlines and distribute timetables to your remote team via email, so everyone stays up to date. Your virtual executives gain access to the tools they need to work seamlessly with one another and can view project objectives easily whenever they need to.

All teams, whether terrestrial or remote, benefit from honed training programs in which members first identify personal challenges and then find new solutions to help them overcome roadblocks. Business owners who need to form solid virtual teams frequently decide to set up team building retreats, where remote executives get the chance to meet and form relationships with their peers. Later on, they can use progress reports to efficiently track challenges and the team's cohesion (and thereby its effectiveness) over time.

Team Development Solutions Built for You

Formulaic day-long or week-long training programs may seem like a tempting low-cost way to train staff members, but they provide far less value than a honed development program designed with your company in mind. At Turnkey Coaching & Development Solutions, we work with both small and large teams (or work groups) at a time to craft unique leadership team training programs and team development programs based around each client's business.

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.

Great team-training courses help participants feel accomplished, energetic and ready to achieve challenging objectives. Well-nurtured employees at all levels interact with their colleagues and peers in healthier ways, helping to create a positive atmosphere in the workplace. To achieve real success, businesses choose tailor-made team-building programs, which empower their participants and ultimately drive company growth.