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• Getting Started

  To find out more how the
  Alvarez Porter Group can
  support you in reaching your goals, contact us here.

• What our clients are saying

  Joe helped us to step back, discuss different ways of looking at our challenges, and identify how we can be more effective as union leaders.

  — Wendell W. Young, IV

Team Development

Your work is increasingly complex and demanding, and it requires people to nimbly and easily collaborate across disciplines and long distances.  Teams form around projects and campaigns, as well as ongoing responsibilities and roles.   You need high functioning and flexible teams to get the best results.  That’s why forming and developing teams has become such a key competency for successful leaders.

Key factors in team performance:

A team is a small group of people working together to achieve a common goal.  Effective teams usually have the following characteristics:

• Sponsorship and authority
• A shared and compelling purpose
• Clear roles and necessary skills
• An effective way of working together
• Strong relationships and norms

Success with virtual teams:

Many teams today are made up of people who work in different offices.  This is not the obstacle or expense that it once was.  It does require paying attention to the systems and practices that support the virtual team environment.

• Well run, interactive virtual meetings
• Attention to communication between meetings
• Collaborative technology for sharing information and work products
• Time together to establish trust and build relationships

A strong team at the top:

Given the demands on change leaders today, CEO’s need a leadership team that can do much of what a single leader might have done in the past.  Here’s how it supports your effectiveness:

• You aren’t alone in thinking for the whole organization
• You focus where you are needed most
• You have capable and trained leaders to step up
• You can focus on external relationships

Getting help with your team

We support team development in the following ways:

• Consulting on organizational design that support teamwork
• Designing a launch to turn a high powered group into a  team.
• Facilitate discussions to make tough decisions or get unstuck
• Training on effective team leadership

Resource:

Ruth Wageman; Debra Nunes; James Burruss; Richard Hackman (2008). Senior Leadership Teams: What It Takes to Make Them Great.Center for Public Leadership: Harvard University Press.

Lencioni, Patrick.  5 Dysfunctions of a Team, 2002.

Katzenbach, Tom. Teams at the Top, 1998.