Boost staff motivation……. Improve team performance….. Optimise organisational results!
People are the key to performance in any organisation. But, of course, employees do not work in a vacuum: leaders need to ensure all the different parts of their organisation work as well together as possible to support performance. As team and organisation development facilitators, we can assist you with this challenge.
An holistic organisational approach to performance
At Owen Morris we emphasize an overall ‘systems‘ perspective for achieving organisational performance, seeking integration across all parts of an organisation (e.g. teams, functions) and all the key capabilities and processes that enable and drive organisational performance e.g. strategy, culture, technology.
Team development
Research indicates that it is the ‘structural‘ elements of a team that are usually most key, for example the team’s purpose, roles, and ways of working. But to make a team really shine, it’s critical also to address a team’s ‘softer’ elements, including team-leader’s management style, relationships between team members and perceived levels of trust, openness and ‘psychological’ safety. At the same time, it’s important to consider the ‘external‘ links and relationships a team has with the rest of the organisation.
We help managers both to establish new teams or develop existing teams. Our approach typically involves both confidential 1:1 discussion with team members and open, collective workshop discussion with the whole team to review issues and shape/agree future action. We also typically make use of one or two psychometric profiling tools (e.g. Belbin, DISC) and we also offer follow-up, more focussed 1:1 coaching support for individual team members.
Senior leadership-team development
Of course, the senior leadership team (the Board and/or executive team) is a key team in any organisation. It’s particularly vital its members work well together (for example, not letting strong egos or functional backgrounds skew objective decision-making). Particularly, the CEO plays a crucial role, needing to balance vision and drive with ‘softer’ aspects of leadership like empathy and openness.
As external facilitator-coach, our senior partner Mike can provide close and dedicated support to your senior team, including stimulating confidential or open feedback from team-members, challenging of current assumptions or accepted ways of doing things, and providing both 1:1 and collective team coaching.
Improving organisational functioning and performance
At the level of the total organisation, several fundamental aspects of an organisation’s ‘health’ and how it functions can significantly influence overall performance. These can be seen as the essential ‘building blocks’ for an organisation and typically include:.
a) Purpose & vision; b) External links & intelligence; c) Strategy: d) Structure; e) Values & culture; f) People & jobs; g) Leadership h) Management systems i) Thinking & Learning j) Change & Innovation k) Technology & Data; l) Governance & Risk; and m) Communications.
We work with an organisation’s board and/or senior exec team to collectively review, assess and discuss all these types of organisational driver and enabling leaders to identify and agree particular areas of opportunity for making changes or improvements. We typically employ a tailored workshop-centred methodology, together with a selection from various HR and OD survey and assessment tools, and, of course, individual or small-group interviews and follow-on coaching and mentoring, if needed.
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 improve together particular skills needed in the organisation. Also, we can run workshops for teams to explore and discuss in more detail specific ‘hot’ or challenging leadership or 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. They could perhaps be as a proactive approach by leaders to improving a specific area of organisational performance or in response to a pressing problem that has arisen.
Examples of development topics for such workshops might include:
* how to develop a more ‘thinking’ and ‘agile’ organisation * dealing with biases in group decision-making * how to get managers to think more strategically * how to develop a more customer-focused culture * how to get different teams to work more collaboratively * how to manage uncertainty or risk better
Change management support
We can assist in turning the outputs from team or organisational workshops into firm action. Some issues may just need quite simple action steps. But more complex or strategic issues – for example, transforming an organisation’s culture – will obviously need more extended thinking, consultation or detailed ‘change project‘ planning. Of course, where useful as a key part of our change support, we can design and deliver targeted 1:1 or team/group coaching.
Contact us
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.