Challenge
A reorganization offered several opportunities for increased productivity and employee and client satisfaction. The purpose of the new team structure was to enable shared decision-making, free up the senior executive´s time, and develop the competencies of the four team leaders. The initiative also was expected to provide an opportunity to develop the competencies of managers in departments throughout Bergman Associates. A larger implication was that the reorganization could become a model for the entire company´s structure.
Solution
Two areas were addressed: development of the executive team, and development of the individual team leaders.
We partnered with the HR Director to accelerate team development by:
- Focusing on the four components
- Conducting on-the-job coaching of individual team leaders
- Observing team meetings and debriefing participants
- Facilitating team process improvement meetings
In addition, at regular intervals we provided brief written and oral reports to the executive team. This approach minimized time away from the job, and ensured that the coaching was applied immediately to get results.
We invested up to two hours per week with the team for eight consecutive weeks. The HR Director continued to meet with individuals and the team as needed for a further four months.
Activities included:
- Individual interviews with team leaders
- Team building sessions
- Individual coaching
The first step was to ensure that both team leaders and their manager understood the goals of this initiative, and fully supported it. The initial Position Plan defined administrative, project management and technical resource roles. To complete the picture, we recommend that they add teamwork and coaching as key roles for team leaders. Next, the team defined how they would share information, and make decisions regarding resources and priorities. The manager´s role, his expectations of the team´s performance, and how they would communicate with him were defined. The team also redefined the essential work processes that produce proposals and support the completion of client projects. Milestones, measures of success, meetings, and reports were all re-examined. Finally, team members came to agreement on how they would manage interpersonal communication and the inevitable conflicts, and continue to get to know each other´s interpersonal work and communication styles. During this stage, the team identified both the competencies it needed to function as a high-performance team and the competencies it already had. The subsequent gap analysis drove the content for a company-wide management development program