Teams In Trouble: The Team As Victim – How To Help A Team Get Unstuck And Reclaim It’s Power
Student Only Area TRUE STORY… The manager was at her wits end. The team was clearly stuck. Everyone was frustrated. But what was the source of all this trouble? The manager was unable (or unwilling) to say. Had I met with team members in advance I would have quickly realized the problem. But I was […]
Teams In Trouble: Lies, Threats and Accusations!
A Teambuilding Nightmare. How would you handle lies, threats and accusations (and maybe a mutiny) in the middle of your next program? Student Only Area TRUE STORY: A couple of years ago I was contacted by the principal of a public school and asked to deliver a day-long teambuilding games workshop. The idea was to help […]
Teams In Trouble: Strategies for Consensus – How To Avoid False Agreements
Student Only Area Everyone is in the room. It’s time to make a decision and run with it. You want buy-in from everyone. You want consensus. But how do you know you’re truly building consensus? TRUE STORY: A team recently met to decide on their top three departmental objectives for 2006. The decision would affect […]
Teams In Trouble # 10 — Running Virtual Team Meetings
TRUE STORY: He remembered saying “How hard can it be leading a Virtual Team?” After all, everyone on the team had access to each othervia phone (land line and cell), email, Blackberry. He thought it wouldn’t matter that the team members lived so far from each other. The team had an initial face-to-face – – […]
Teams In Trouble #9: Stop Team Member Domination and Unleash the Power of Teamwork!
Student Only Area “Leadership is based on inspiration, not domination; on cooperation, not intimidation.” — William Arthur Ward TRUE STORY Alex is a project manager and he is frustrated. He heads up an intact Business Process Improvement team composed of individuals from multiple support functions in the company. They’ve been working on a project aimed […]
Teams In Trouble # 8: Walls and Bridges – How To Facilitate a Mediation Between Two Adversarial and Entrenched Team Members
“Things go wrong when people build walls instead of bridges.” TRUE STORY: Joe and Martha don’t get along. It’s been getting worse and worse. It’s gotten to the point where other team members don’t want to be around them. Joe and Martha are members of a Business Process Improvement Team. Joe complains that Martha isn’t […]