Helping leaders to boost the performance of their teams and build organisational effectiveness
We are team and organisation development facilitators. We help leaders get more effective results from their people, their teams and their organisation as a whole.
We emphasize a modern, ‘systems‘ perspective. This means looking at and integrating all the influencing factors in a performance situation together. Not just focusing, for example, on a few individuals to be ‘hero’ leaders – the traditional approach in most organisations!
Coaching for team development
Traditional models of team development stressed having a good team ‘leader’ to motivate people or having a good team ‘chemistry’, perhaps stimulated by a social event. But that’s simply not enough! Great, high-performance teams today depend on a wider set of factors:
- Foundational factors include: a) Direction: e.g: compelling/clear purpose, priorities and goals; b) Structure: e.g. clear roles, right team size, people, skills, team norms/values and decision rights; and c) Support: e.g. needed resources, systems, information, incentives.
- Relational factors include: a) Safety: e.g. psychological safety, openness, trust between team-members; b) Mutual Commitment: strong, mutual respect, regard, support, co-operation and shared accountability between team-members; and c) Team Leader e.g. democratic/inclusive style, focus as coach, and treating all equitably.
- Dynamic factors include: a) Operational discipline/resilience e.g. efficient workflow, performance monitoring mechanisms, use of KPIs, handling of difficulties/errors/conflict. b) External Links – strong relationships and communications with rest of the organisation and beyond; and c) Learning/Adaptation mechanisms for responding to change.
With such a framework, we help managers to establish new teams or develop existing teams – from local, operational teams to executive teams and Boards. Our approach typically includes a tailored mix of survey, observation, 1:1 conversations, whole-group workshops and coaching.
Improving senior team & Boards – for better thinking and decision-making
The effectiveness of senior teams depends a lot on the above factors. But, very often such teams, of course, with their mix of functional specialists, or only meeting occasionally, are more like co-ordination or reporting groups rather than real teams. And, given their strategic role, their thinking and decision-making quality can be the key concern.
So, senior teams and Boards particularly need their meetings to work effectively. That depends on their having the right ‘conditions‘ that support and foster clear thinking and sound decisions. We help teams create such conditions, including:
Good inputs: e.g: good data; diversity of people; all come prepared; freedom of thought/input Good dynamics: e.g: strong relationships; high trust/openness; people feel equal and at ease; Good discipline: e.g: focused/clear agenda; structured decision process; use of critical thinking Good chairing: e.g: draws our quieter voices; ensures balanced discussion; manages time well Place/environment: e.g: conditions are comfortable, quiet, good support aids to-hand
As an experienced Chair as well as facilitator, our senior partner Mike will help you consider and assess all these types of factor, bringing in an external ‘best-practice’ view along the way, and helping you to identify and plan opportunities for boosting effectiveness.
Improving organisational performance
We help leaders look at, improve and align critical ‘enablers’ of great organisational performance. Factors such as: an organisation’s vision, values and culture, structure, people and skills, operating model, communication processes, management systems, leadership practices, team dynamics and relations, and use of technology.
Examples of projects we are called to work on:
- Review and strengthening of organisational values and culture
- Re-structuring of teams or key roles to support organisational strategy better
- Breaking down silos and improving trust and collaboration between departments
- Review and improvement of weak management processes
- Development of a more innovative, learning or change-oriented culture
- Devising and running a change programme
We closely work with an organisation’s board and/or senior exec team to jointly review, assess and discuss such organisational drivers, focussing in on particular areas of weaknesses or concern and then developing ideas and solutions for making changes. We can assist, of course, with planning and implementation of changes, depending on how much support you want.
We typically employ a tailored workshop-centred methodology, together with a selection of survey/assessment tools, organisational change modelling, process design, 1:1 working with individual managers, and group coaching.
Group training and issue/problem workshops
As well as helping with overall organisational development, we can design and run focused group workshops for personnel to develop needed skills together or to explore in more detail specific ‘hot’ or challenging organisational issues.
Workshops can be as short as a couple of hours (perhaps as an add-on to a regular Board or team meeting) or up to a whole day.
Examples of topics for such workshops could be: how to get managers to think more strategically; how to get teams or functions in the organisation to work more collaboratively; and how to become a more ‘future-ready’ or agile organisation.
Contact us
We’re Owen Morris Partnership – team and organisation development facilitators.
If your organisation is looking to boost the performance of any of your teams or wider aspects of your organisation overall, do get in touch and have a confidential chat with Mike.
Contact us at the office on 01994 278118 or email us via the Contact page on this website.