Team development workshops are comprised of real team members who have a common purpose and whose jobs are interrelated.

The objective of the workshop is usually to improve the response of the team to its business and organisational demands.

There are many approaches to Team Building varying from War Games, Orienteering, White Water Rafting and so forth all the way to the 'Touchy Feely' experience of '70s encounter groups.

Both ends of the spectrum can become a powerful team building event so long as each exercise is carefully designed to reach clear business objectives and there is a Review Process that is challenging and supportive. This makes sure that the learning is carried over into the workplace.

There are many specific areas for improvement in team performance. The most common are:

• Improving relationships, team spirit and leadership styles within the team.
• Handling conflict between one or more other teams.
• Creating a shared vision or plan and generating commitment to it.
• Improving team performance and standards, gaining greater job clarity.
• Better definition of team outputs.
• Greater mutual accountability of team members to each other.

It is the 'family relationships' within the team that demand great skill from the facilitator. How criticism is handled is usually a key issue for any group. Very often however, conflicts and 'hidden agendas' that rarely surface in the workplace are allowed to come to light and be resolved.

Our approach

1) Data Gathering
First of all, we help you get clear on what a good team would look like, what this team in particular needs to improve and what is in the way of its performance. So we meet the boss and each individual privately to gain familiarity with the people, the business and the key issues. This step is crucial in deciding the outcomes, the depth and type of intervention and how to evaluate the programme.

2) Design
There are many types of team development experiences. Some are entirely indoors and others utilise the outdoors or a mixture of both. This is determined by objectives of the team and its maturity. Sometimes the indoor activities are totally business focussed and sometimes they utilise a lot of improvisational 'play', drawing from experimental theatre.

We believe nevertheless, that all activities indoors or outside, while valuable in themselves should always be reviewed in depth to extract learning that is relevant to the individual, the team and the workplace. Otherwise the event veers towards a kind of 'Corporate Entertainment' type of activity. This can be great for motivation and lots of fun, but whatever insight people get during such an event, it is rarely sustained on return to the workplace.

3) Delivery; An example:
A senior group of twenty IT experts coming from production, development and planning, knew that their division was not doing well. The main focus was on relationships between departments, personality clashes, under-performance of some individuals and user dissatisfaction:

See Case Study: 'Pulling Together'