Team development - practical tips and examples

Teambuilding - The path to trustful cooperation

From Sabine Walter, Head of netzwerk managementberatung | coaching

At the beginning of the year, many teams deal with the measures and key topics that should be on the content agenda for the new year. In our opinion, too little attention is paid to the interpersonal component. But we all know that if the people in a team or an organisation are doing well, the content-related topics also progress faster and are more goal-oriented.

Therefore, at the beginning of the year, we recommend developing a goal and a strategy for working together. You will find concrete approaches for this in this article.

Team culture basics

Characteristics of healthy teams

In my article "Team Development in Medium-Sized Businesses" I explain that healthy teams are characterised by five core factors:

• Everyone is committed with mind and heart to the common goals.
• Each team member has sufficient opportunities for development and growth.
• All team members feel equally seen, heard and valued.
• Everyone trusts each other.
• Everyone feels safe.

The moment one of these factors is not present or only weakly present, collaborative work suffers and the risk of conflicts increases. Therefore, it is worthwhile to regularly look at the situation, take stock and actively work on cooperation.

Teambuilding approach

Approach for developing a goal and a strategy for a healthy and efficient team

The proven approach consists of 7 steps.

Let us now look at these steps in detail.

1 | Analyse actual situation

Before you start developing a common vision for your team, we recommend a thorough analysis of the current situation in the context of an anonymous survey. You can either develop the questions together in the team or use our team analysis tool, which gives you within 2 weeks after the end of the survey a meaningful overview of your team's strengths and fields of action and makes concrete suggestions for goal-oriented team-building measures.

If you want to develop the questionnaire yourself, you will get an idea of a minimal questionnaire below, which consists of statements that you can have answered either on a scale, in traffic light colours red, yellow, green or by different smilies. The more granular the assessment options, the more meaningful. We recommend a scale from 1 (hardly applies) to 10 (very much applies).

It is important that you guarantee the anonymity of the answers in the Evaluation, but look at both the range of values as well as the average.

2 | Develop goal

Based on the as-is analysis, you can develop the goal together in the team. In contrast to strategic goals, we recommend to tighten the time frame for the goal, e.g. to one quarter or half a year. Why? The shorter periods help you to be more specific.

On the other hand, we recommend not to tackle all topics at once, i.e. also to focus the target picture on 1-3 key aspects. Each of the topics such as Trust, Appreciation, Respect, Emotional Security is complex in itself, so you would overwhelm yourself and the team if you tackle too many things at once.

In the following, you will receive example questions with which you can initiate the development process of the goal.

Once you have a clear picture of your goals, the next step is to derive concrete measures from it.

3 | Derive measures

The guiding question for this step is: "What does it take for us to achieve our goal?"; so that, for example, in half a year everyone rates the statement "I enjoy my work" as eight?

Is it, to stay with this example, about better aligning roles and tasks in the team with the strengths of the team members? Or do you need specific rituals in the team to create more interaction and closeness in the team despite hybrid forms of work? Is it a matter of making the common jour fixe more productive because everyone sees it as a time-waster?

Brainstorm and then think together about which of the ideas resonate how strongly with what you want to achieve.

Then put the ideas you want to implement in order and plan them accordingly with time and budget.

4 | Quantify budget and plan time requirements

Experience shows that team development always requires a budget. Depending on how trusting your teamwork already is, the budget may not have to be large at all. What usually plays the greater role is the time budget for individual team members, you as a leader or all together. This time should be spent carefully and with time buffers in mind. Plan directly in the calendar and also actively create scope in day-to-day business for team-related activities and the defined measures.

5 | Define responsibilities

Specific responsibilities are to be defined for each measure. We recommend that everyone plays a part and thus also takes responsibility for the team-building process and mutual cooperation.

6 | Arrange joint review appointments

"When are we going to look at ourselves as a team again and talk about what has already developed?" is the central question when it comes to making review appointments. Ideally, these appointments should not be on the same date as your goal.

7 | Formulate how successes are celebrated

That you are already thinking initially about how you acknowledge achievements together, is crucial to the teambuilding process for several reasons. On the one hand, you thereby secure the motivation to continue, even if it sometimes gets down to the nitty-gritty. On the other hand, the celebration of successes explicitly pays for better teamwork.

In the team analyses we conduct, the statement "We celebrate successes together." is rated below average by more than 90% of the teams.

Conclusion: Team development

Team development needs structure and time

In order to achieve a healthy team culture and a trustful cooperation, we recommend a 7-step approach:

1. Analyse the actual situation, e.g. with the help of our team analysis tool
2. Develop the goal
3. Derive measures
4. Quantify budget and plan time requirements
5. Define responsibilities
6. Arrange review appointments
7. Formulate how successes are celebrated

It is essential that you are careful to proceed more slowly and in small steps rather than overburdening the team or individual team members by taking too many measures and too many steps. Development will only take place if everyone feels secure enough to get involved in the joint process and the new cooperation.

Therefore, in addition to a clear structure and experience in facilitation, a team development process also needs time. You should take this into account and plan for it.

If you would like us to moderate your team development process or are interested in an in-depth team analysis, please contact us.