Our first article covered how we worked with a Management Team to build trust/relationships, the first pillar of a high performing team, based on Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team model.
This post focuses on building understanding and empathy across sub teams within a team, helping to break down silos and creating a sense of One Team.
Many functions or departments in organisations are made up of sub-teams, and frequently there can be a pattern of working in silos. To start to break that down, and get everyone focusing in the same direction, it’s important to understand the different team’s perspectives.
A key activity we ran to build relationships, trust and empathy was Lands Work™ to help the different sub teams, previously working in silos, to stand in each others’ shoes, and hear from each team (then play back) for example:
– What is important to them?
– What challenges they face
– What help or support they need
This is done within the context of delivering the total team’s remit or goal.
We do this up on our feet, stepping into different ‘Lands’, allowing us to get a felt sense of the different perspectives.
This had an instant and powerful impact on the level of understanding and empathy between the teams, and they went on to create ‘Our Land’, bringing the best of the individual lands into their shared space and noticing what is possible from that place. It really shifts the energy into a more ‘One Team’ space.
This is one exercise where we would definitely advise you to use external facilitators – it takes careful management, with neutrality and sensitivity. Done well, it helps to break down silos within/across teams, and creates a real sense of being heard and seen amongst all participants, and begins to create a felt sense of One Team.
What YOU can do:
– Make space and time for everyone to genuinely hear from different teams, without judgement
– Ask the teams to identify the ‘best bits’ they want to import from each team to create the ONE team
– Explore what is possible from this One Team place
Next in this series: How to create a shared Team Ambition to engage hearts and minds.
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