team-connect 2

YOUR TEAM MAY NEED MORE THAN ONE EVENT TO ADDRESS ITS OPPORTUNITIES, AND team-connect 2 IS THAT SOLUTION

The team-connect 2 starts where the team-connect 1 culminates.

Teams facing a number of issues simultaneously can be among the most at risk of underperforming. Our team-connect 2 solution is designed to help teams successfully grapple with the challenge of concurrently tasking multiple objectives.

First, we surface the team’s current state and help them articulate the desired state, all while identifying team improvement objectives. We provide facilitated learning and team coaching, and work with them to develop action plans that address key gaps. Then, to be sure all these elements are working, we measure the team’s progress over a 3- to 6-month period.

Great teams do not just happen. Let us help you create your own dream team that gets rave reviews.

WHY TEAMS NEED team-connect 2

  • Low engagement scores
  • “Bad” behaviors that oppose the culture
  • Ineffective communication
  • Role overlap or lack of clarity
  • Destructive conflict

WHAT team-connect 2 DELIVERS 

  • Improved communication and common team “language”
  • Specific issues addressed with an action plan
  • A model for managing future conflicts
  • Skills for team members to leverage in multiple situations

Experience and outcomes

Teams facing a number of issues simultaneously can be among the most at risk of under-performing. Our team-connect 2 is designed to help teams successfully grapple with the challenge of concurrently tasking multiple objectives.

Discovery

Understanding both current and desired states by interviewing:

• Team leader • Human resources partner • Team members

Creating a team profile using a variety of tools:

• MBTI • Clifton Strengths • DiSC • Others

Leverage relevant engagement, retention, and performance data.

Customized Content

Leverage our deep Connect the Dots’ expertise, proven approach, and assessment tools to design a team development strategy that meets the team’s specific needs.

Delivery

Conduct a comprehensive gap analysis with current and desired state data.

 

Deliver a series of facilitated sessions that create an action plan that includes debriefing with team’s leader to support the team’s objectives and address its challenges.

Measuring and Reporting

With our proprietary, team-connect survey tool we’ll measure and track both the group’s and the individuals’ commitments to support the action plan.

Team leader receives a roll-up of progress against all commitments.

Team members get in-depth feedback with individualized reporting.

Summary and Recommendations

Team leaders will receive a comprehensive executive summary after each session, any survey data collected, detailed notes, and a project summary with recommendations at the end of the engagement.

Experience and outcomes

Teams facing a number of issues simultaneously can be among the most at risk of under-performing. Our team-connect 2 is designed to help teams successfully grapple with the challenge of concurrently tasking multiple objectives.

 

  • Understanding both current and desired states by interviewing:
    • Team leader
    • Human resources partner
    • Team members
  • Creating a team profile using a variety of tools: Gallup Strengths, MBTI, and others

Leverage Connect the Dots’ expertise, proven approach and assessment tools to design a team session that meets the team’s specific needs.

  • Because the Connect the Dots team is skilled at analyzing and leveraging assessment data, engaging the team and surfacing critical elements, we can better ensure the overall objectives are achieved.
  • Conduct gap analysis with current and desired state data
  • Create action plan to address gap
  • Use team-connect survey process
  • With our proprietary team-connect survey tool, the team will measure and track the group and the individual commitments to support the action plan
  • The team leader receives a roll-up of all progress against all the commitments, while team members get in-depth feedback with individualized reporting.

Connect the Dots will prepare an executive summary, session notes, and full recommendations.

Team-connect Solution Guide

Teams News & Updates

Teams

News

We are pleased to partner with Val Ries, author of Chief Inspiration Officer, to offer a Management Mastery Class for developing your leaders.  We hosted a webinar to review the details of the program and offer pilot pricing.  We are looking for a few qualified organizations to launch a pilot in early 2023.

Please check out the recording for more information and feel free to reach out with any questions.

Coaching, Teams

News

As leaders continue to navigate an organizational landscape of virtual, hybrid, and in-person work, they need new competencies to foster connection of their teams and employees.

Employees who feel undervalued or disconnected have been leaving organizations far more frequently in the past two years, and it is up to leaders to reverse this trend. In April 2022, we sat down with CHROs to discuss these ongoing challenges and best practices to address them. Following is a summary of our discussion.

Discussion Points

What conversations have you had with your leadership teams?

  • Leaders are focused on how to protect their culture when everyone is working in different places, as well as how to evolve their culture to meet the current state.
  • The philosophy of the leadership team is a key driver of the decision to use a virtual, hybrid, or all-in approach. Participant CHRO organizations were in very different places with regard to “return to office” following the pandemic.
  • Leaders may be in denial that employees are feeling disconnected. If productivity remains high despite higher-than-average turnover, leaders may not see the link between connectivity and turnover.

What are you hearing from employees?

  • Some employees are very interested in in-person work, while others expressed dissatisfaction about returning to the office.
  • Employees want more empathy from their managers—not just asking about their weekends, but truly showing they care for employees at a deeper level. In particular, Gen Z employees’ workplace satisfaction depends on feeling valued and heard.
  • Many leaders need additional development in their situational leadership ability.

What tactics are your organizations using?

  • Regular listening groups or informal Q&A sessions make a big difference in employee engagement.
  • Feedback surveys are especially fruitful when they are followed-up by discussing the results with employees, identifying action items, and the leaders being transparent about the changes made.
  • Work teams also benefit from weekly wrap-up meetings to share accomplishments, feedback, recognition, etc. in a more casual and informal format

Need additional support?

As your leaders continue to stretch themselves to navigate new and challenging dynamics, coaching support can help them do so more effectively. CTD’s on-target® and quickconnect® coaching models give you the flexibility to invest in targeted coaching at any level.  Effective onboarding is another tool for organizations who want to differentiate themselves as an employer. Check out our solutions for leadership and all-employee onboarding that provide a branded, customized experience for your new hires. We welcome the opportunity to talk with you about your specific leadership development needs and a custom solution. 

Teams

Blog

As organizations begin to plan for what’s next in this uncertain post-pandemic time, they may want to look to their successful teams in creating that playbook.  What we have learned from this crisis, is that it has either strengthened and galvanized some organizations or crippled and/or shut-down others.  One contributing factor to successful companies, is creating and cultivating high-performing teams. In our experience with clients, we find that the “secret sauce” in creating a high performing team includes, strong talent, high employee engagement, clear strategy, and productive team dynamics.

Of the four, team dynamics is the one that organizations seem to most often overlook and neglect. Business author Patrick Lencioni has called teamwork “the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare.”

What’s more: team dynamics may actually be the easiest driver of team performance for organizations to improve. Our team-connect process, for example, has helped dozens of organizations strengthen the dynamics—and performance—of their key teams.

What is team dynamics? BusinessDictionary.com defines it as “the behavioral relationships between members of a group that are assigned connected tasks within a company.”

Teams with strong and productive dynamics share many qualities, including:

  • Cohesiveness
  • Effective communication
  • Defined and shared purpose
  • Clarity of roles
  • Diversity of thought
  • Effective leadership

To show why team dynamics are so important, let’s take a look at four benefits of having productive team dynamics.

  1. Fewer Mistakes

On teams with strong dynamics, team members have clarity regarding their roles, the scope of their responsibilities and how they interact with and hand-off work to others. This reduces mistakes, rework and frustration.  When mistakes are made, these teams will also appropriately communicate and hold one and other accountable to quickly debrief and learn from those mistakes.

  1. Meeting Deadlines

Clarity of responsibilities, expectations and goals—all hallmarks of teams with strong dynamics—helps teams be effective and efficient.

It’s why we make communication a core part of our team-connect approach. We give team leaders a platform for clearly communicating project and initiative expectations and deadlines, as well as provide team members the opportunity to ensure that they have the resources and support to meet and manage deadlines.

  1. More Confidence in Leadership

Team success and confidence in leadership are connected. Teams that make fewer mistakes and meet more deadlines than average are going to feel more organized and well-run—with which members are likely to connect effective leadership.

That said, effective leadership is important for strong team dynamics and team success to occur in the first place. Clarity of responsibilities, expectations and goals occur because of effective management and communication from leaders.

As a result, approaches for improving team dynamics help leaders clarify their vision and expectations, be transparent with information, and effectively motivate and manage individual team members.

  1. Improved Retention

Employees on teams aligned behind a common goal; who have clear roles, responsibilities and expectations; and feel a strong connection to their team leader and members; will be motivated to stay on the team and to deliver strong performance.

This benefit is of especially high importance in the current talent climate, where many employers struggle to find the talent they need. Employee retention and turnover has ranked as the top workforce management challenge for three years running, according to a SHRM/Globoforce annual survey.

High performing teams will set the standard for moving forward into the unknowns of our economic future.  Their ability to set the tone for organizations can literally mean the difference between surviving and thriving versus not being relevant and even existing as we enter this new chapter.

Contact us at info@connectthedotsconsulting.com to see how our consultants can help you improve the dynamics of key teams at your organization.

Our team-connect Survey Process

 

We start with thoughtfully diagnosing the team’s current culture by using available data, assessments and interviews.

This provides the team leader with a clear view of what is getting in the way of the team’s success.

We design a series of structured team sessions that:

  • Share the team culture analysis
  • Give team members the opportunity to talk through both processes and behaviors that need to be addressed
  • Productively provide feedback to one another
  • Develop both team and individual commitments that will lead to the team’s desired state

 

Measure progress by leveraging CTD’s team-connect Survey to:

  • Drive accountability and measure progress by collecting team feedback specific to one another’s engagement and behavioral change
  • Provide the team’s leader with a clear understanding of what he/she and the team need from each other to enable and support the team’s success
  • Share team and individual survey result reports