Team Development

Stages of Development

We provide a variety of services for teams throughout the life cycle of teams, from initial development, to ongoing growth and deepening, to closure and transition. Throughout the life of a team both the “tasks” of their work and the “relationships” of the members matter. Below is an outline of some of the services we offer pertaining to the life cycle of a team along with a narrative description which follows.

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Initial Development

• Mission: Articulating your primary purpose as a team

• Vision: Articulating what you hope to accomplish and what would this look like

• Role clarification: Determining who is responsible for what

• Style complimentarity: Examination of values, beliefs and styles of teaming

• Trust-building: Clarifying potential areas of conflict, establishing agreements and working through differences.

• Boundaries: Clarifying agreed upon boundaries, matters of confidentiality

• Decision-making: Clarifying who makes what kinds of decision

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Growth and Deepening

• Assessment using Quality Team Effectiveness

• Trust-tending

• Implementation of action plans

• Conflict management

• Ongoing accountability and evaluation

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Closure and Transition

• Completing the tasks

• Bringing a closure to relationships

• Discerning new choices

• Reconciling as needed

• Gathering the learnings

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Initial Development

The initial development of a team requires an understanding and articulation of their mission (i.e., their primary reason for existing) as well as their vision (i.e., a set of goals and a plan for accomplishing them). It requires that roles and responsibilities are established according to their passion, gifts, and talents. It requires the development of a vision.

Initial development of a team requires time be set aside for relationships to develop into a cohesive whole. Building trust is the cornerstone of solid relationships. There is a need to understand and find a way to complimentary needs and styles.

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Growth and Deepening

Once the honeymoon is over and teams get down to work, the work can become overwhelming. Teams can lose the forest through the trees and their priorities can become clouded. Time initially devoted to getting to know one another can get lost in the shuffle as task demands increase. Work efforts can become individualized for the sake of expediency and unresolved conflicts can accumulate. When these things begin to happen a team can lose their effectiveness, as well as sense of mission.
Ongoing attention to relationships and adjustments of the vision are routine and never-ending aspects of teaming. Tending to the trust by initiating and resolving conflicts, reconciling differences and building the partnership is ongoing. Accountability for task completion and relationship commitments are both important. These kinds of things are hard for teams to do by themselves.

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We offer consultation and facilitation for teams to do the ongoing business of teaming. We help them navigate the difficult struggles along the way while implementing their chosen vision. This allows teams to grow and deepen their sense of partnership and ownership for the team.

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Closure and Transition

While assessment and accountability are ongoing as teams come to the end of their journey it is a time to take stock and gather the learnings. It is a time for closure for relationships as well. This is a time that “unfinished business” (issues that came up during their term, but were not adequately resolved) tend to re-emerge and can create a great deal of tension. It is a time to recognize the limits of time and re-prioritize goals and “let go”.

Saying goodbye to what the the journey meant is simultaneously a time for discerning a new choice. Searching for where God is drawing them is an ongoing task and now takes on a special poignancy as teams begun to transition. We assist teams in this time of closure and transition.