Case Study: Senior R&D team
Presenting issues
- Recent restructuring and role changes implemented by team leader including new hires
- Underlying tension within the team shown in stonewalling and blaming
- Conflict avoidance, due to lack of team skills
- A ‘sense’ that something was wrong within the team but with no clear understanding of how to surface and resolve this.
Results
- Noticeable improvement in open communication and authenticity – no hidden messages
- Greater acceptance that conflict allows new information to enter the system and can lead to innovation
- Visible increase in trust between team members
- An awareness of the differing perspectives of others and a willingness to discuss them openly
- Sustainable skills which the team can implement at any stage
- Independence from coaches and coaching processes
Coaching processes suggested and then implemented
- In answer to the questions: ‘Where do you want this team to go? And ‘How shall we get there?’ the team created the coaching agenda
- ‘How do you want to be together?” resulted in consciously creating a safe environment for change
- Deep democracy processes encouraged ALL VOICES to be heard
- Alignment tools gave the team skills to navigate conflict
- Using experiential tools to temperature check where each member was placed in relation to an issue.
Team actions are defined by the team for direct application in their workplace. These actions align with the team’s goals and agenda and accountability measures are agreed