Team building skills allow people to
work together better, saving time, money and your most important
asset-knowledge. The Corporate Learning Institute helps individuals and teams
develop optimal collaboration skills. How do they do it? Recently, Dr. Susan
Cain worked with a high profile client in Santa Barbara, California. The team,
from a start-up company in famed Silicon Valley, California, was struggling.
Bolstered by an impressive start, with sufficient investor funding and a great
go-to-market service, sales flattened, the inevitable lay-offs occurred, and
the team splintered into predicate factions.
CLI
partners Dr. Susan Cain and Dr. Tim Buividas were asked to help the team
regroup.
"We
worked within the CLI span of capabilities, which includes strategy
development, cultural assessment, innovation and project management and team
capability development," commented Dr. Tim Buividas.
Together,
market position was assessed. Then, short, mid-and longer-range goals were
revisited. A redeveloped strategy began to emerge with an action plan to
generate early wins. "We had to combine team building activities with
discussion to break through to deeper conversation," Dr. Buividas noted.
The team made progress in developing open conversations in a more casual
environment; they began to see how missed conversations led to silos and fed
the fear factor rampant within the culture.
"The
team members stopped hiding out from each other and could now see themselves as
one team. This only occurred after we introduced team building activities that
required trust and communication to complete," Dr. Buividas concluded.
CLI
partner Dr. Susan Cain agreed. "We have developed a select grouping of
portable team building activities that serve to engage clients directly in
conversations about trust, collaboration, problem solving and innovative
thinking. They can spark very deep conversations about the state of the
organization’s health, about grudges that have been built between people, and
about how to move ahead to solve even the organization’s biggest
challenges."
Team
building activities, combined with an organization’s business context needs can
pay off in big ways. Today, the start-up that CLI worked with is back on track
with their progress and clear on their common goals. Their road ahead is not
easy, but is optimized by the new agreements and skills that they now have in
place. "Combining team building with a strategic change agenda is a great
way to improve the odds for future success," Dr. Buividas stated.
For
more information on how to optimize your team's future, visit The Corporate
Learning Institute at www.corplearning.com.
Susan
Cain
Corporate
Learning Institute
scain@corplearning.com
1-800-203-6734
