Team development - back to basics

I would like to share an approach I used in a recent assignment, which neither new or unique, can act as a reminder to managers to take time to ensure team alignment to organisation direction.

The following key questions were explored with the team:

1. What (do we need to do) - I shared our organisation strategy and plans and compared this with our team objectives. The exercise for the team was to link our team objectives with the strategy of the organisation - this demonstrated many touch points between what we do and how it benefits the organisation.
2. Why (do we matter) - We listed our stakeholders, what they need from us and how we benefit them. This highlighted over 20 "interested parties" who rely on us for information and advice.
3. How (do we do it) - We performed a values exercise to identify the values we share and which we are prepared to commit to - intending to unite a broad range of individuals with different backgrounds, cultures, skills and personalities. We chose 2 aspirational values, namely "collaboration" and "challenge" to guide us on our journey towards a more customer focused and value added finance team.

We polished up our Shared Values and made it visual across our workspace. The team also performed individual personality profiling to understand themselves and each other better.

There are many approaches to take to influence team effectiveness. I propose a simple approach that starts with the leader who engages the team to answer key questions such as, what do we do, why do we do it and how will we do it.

This leads to greater individual commitment and enjoyment in the workplace and while on this topic, I would like to conclude with a quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832):

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back-- Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issue from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."