Bringing a critical operations team back to life

NOTE:  Need to update with Renee’s changes and wait until approved to launch.  Putting it in here now for styling purposes.

One of Canada’s 50 Best-Managed Companies had recently conducted a company-wide survey that showed opportunities for improvement in a number of key areas:

• Job satisfaction,
• Employee engagement,
• Teamwork: feeling a part of a team, a strong feeling of team spirit and cooperation,
• Management’s ability to take consistent action.

Over the previous 9 months, the manager of a critical operations team had sensed a breakdown in her organization. At the time, the manager was scaling back her work hours in preparation for retirement. Then another key team member announced her planned maternity leave.

The company recognized that the time was right to inject some ‘new life’ into the team dynamics and brought us (Reneevations) in to lead the endeavor.

The company retained us to:

• Assess the team dynamics and identify key personal behaviours that are eroding team functioning,
• Conduct a thorough diagnosis of what needs improvement and build a process backed with team competencies to enrich the team dynamics,
• Guide team members to deal with conflict more effectively,
• Provide a process for team development.

We jointly defined these objectives:

1. Create a healthy functional team dynamic,
2. Improve team morale by linking morale to team performance and team relationships,
3. Navigate current conflict issues caused by personal and interpersonal styles as well as judgments relating to ineffective accountability,
4. Create a new ground rules to help the team stay intact and function more effectively.

Since measurement is critical, we also defined these tangible “measures of success:”

• The team in question has made a declaration that improved team function would benefit all,
• The manager’s confidence in the team dynamic has increased,
• The team has become more functional and competent with improved self-management and accountability,
• The team has developed an understanding of how to work together more effectively,
• Team performance and employee engagement has increased as measured in the next survey,
• There is evidence that demonstrates that the manager’s departure will not create negative consequences on team performance.

Phase One – Diagnosis

We began by delivering a highly confidential “sensing” survey to each individual team member, reassuring those employees that responses and common themes would be carefully communicated to avoid personal identification.

We presented the key themes in a team meeting that moved into a brainstorming session to go deeper into the root causes, viewpoints and potential solutions for the problems identified in the survey. This session gave the team an opportunity to ‘own’ their perspectives in the group format; it also gave us important insight into individual behaviours and team dynamics.

Phase Two – Dealing with Unfinished Business

Over 8 weeks, I met with small groups of the larger team — sometimes randomly chosen and sometimes strategically matched. Our conversations revolved around uncovering misinterpretations and immediately resolving current conflicts. During the process, team members opened up about negative team dynamics, received feedback on their personal ‘eroding and promoting behaviours,’ and began to improve their competencies in these areas:

• Communication, especially active + reflective listening and giving/receiving feedback
• Emotional intelligence
• Navigating conflict
• Trust

We also identified and began resolving problems (we call them “core rhinos”) including:

• Leadership silos that hampered accountability and authority
• Leadership’s avoidance of regular corrective and directive feedback,
• The personal leadership style of the team manager, who subsequently completed a leadership assessment with us and created an action plan for improvement.

The process stressed the importance of business results as well as individual professional development. Team members began to establish new ‘norms’ for working together more effectively. Individuals became more self-responsible and accountable with new methods of communicating and giving/receiving feedback.

We also created a leadership ‘deal’ between two team leaders who had been previously misaligned.

Phase Three – Team Competency Development

During the following 8 weeks, we brought team members together in both small and full team meetings to practice what they learned about communication and feedback. We then began layering in additional competencies:

• Problem solving as a team
• Giving and receiving feedback for improved accountability
• “Leadership for Einsteins” – bringing out the Genius from within
• Performance management

We also began to co-create more solutions:

• “Roasting the rhinos” – declaring new ways to decrease silos in leadership, clarify roles and responsibilities, and utilize regular corrective and directive feedback,
• Creating team meeting agenda openers + closers to increase trust and feedback
• Improving expectations, peer accountabilities and rules for mutual respect
• Defining more actionable business objectives
• Celebrations to enjoy success

Phase Four – Applying the Learnings Each Day

During the final 4 weeks, employees practiced their new norms, competencies and lessons. We reinforced new behaviours by facilitating meetings to provide quality assurance, further solution-finding and support for day-to-day changes that the team was experiencing.

(To be added)