Team Intervention Library

Things change ultra-fast - stability and lack of risk are no longer possible. What is required of us is a collection of acts of courage, from the small ones of raising an unconformable point, to the major ones of attempting things that are new and unheard of. Constant challenge. Constant push.

With life going at a very fast pace, it is often hard to stop and think of others in a deep and meaningful way. With Emotional Intelligence comprising our ability to recognise our own emotions and those of others, we have to cultivate the ability to both comprehend and relate to those around us and validate their feelings by our understanding.

When we have to live and work in this VUCA world we have to remain intentionally flexible to be able to adapt and roll with the punches. This, over time, translated directly in how resilient and ultimately successful we are as a team.

Humour has immense unifying power. We see a huge correlation between the presence of humour in a team and not only their engagement indicators but more importantly, their resilience.

To mitigate against Impression Management, the Impression Management Counters encourage your team to work on reflective logs to understand how and when they have not spoken up that day or week.

In a world of dynamic teams, we often have to come together fast and be hyper-teaming i.e. work in different teams at different stages simultaneously. This requires a toolkit to form and bond any team in a quick but real way so you can trust each other and continue to outperform.

Teams who learn together, perform together. In particular in our VUCA world of breakneck speed in technology, continuous learning is paramount! This is why we measure learning in the dashboard, so that we can be sure team members learn both individually and as a group.

It is never advisable that we completely dissociate our work lives from our personal lives but when it comes to major events unfolding around us, not spending time actively discussing how it makes us feel is a damaging strategy that can affect productivity, mental health and lead to burnout for the entire team.

In the last few years, positive psychology and the science of wellbeing have been able to prove beyond a doubt that happiness depends heavily on mindset and that changing behaviours around being able to remember, quantify and savour positive experiences retrains neural pathways to such an extent that we are better equipped to recognise opportunities, stay open to change and be generally much more content. This is true at an individual level but also at a team level.

Every team needs a kickstarter, but what’s just as important is to do relaunches (this playbook works for both) when you need them, or even better before you need them. A team relaunch is a long, focused moment taken to look intensely at where your team is at. Everything is on the table - purpose, vision, feelings, behaviours and ways of working.

Most teams occasionally need to perform some form of exorcism or cleansing ritual to remove any emotional blockers holding them back. If your team has any serious lingering grievances, no honest work can be done to make you into a cohesive bubble who makes magic.

Teams tend to think they know each other really well if they have spent some time together. Unfortunately, due to how the workplace has been mired with unquestioned convention that we are to keep our private persona separated from our work persona, this isn’t always the case. High performing teams often report their team feels like a close-knit family. For teams to perform well together they need to have a tight emotional bond and that can not be accomplished in the absence of sharing emotionally significant details about their lives. The true meaning of “engagement” is whether or not people have the ability to relate to each other and empathise as they care about each other and that ability is predicated on how intimately they know each other. This exercise will help replace years of asking for details about each other that may have been stifled by impression management or how we thought being “professional” means being unemotional and not sharing human details with one’s team mates.

Most teams occasionally need to perform some form of exorcism or cleansing ritual to remove any emotional blockers holding them back. If your team has any serious lingering grievances, no honest work can be done to make you into a cohesive bubble who makes magic.

Things change ultra-fast, stability and lack of risk are no longer possible. What is required of us is a collection of acts of courage from the small ones of raising an unconformable point to the major ones of attempting things that are new and unheard of. Constant challenge. Constant push.

With life going at a very fast pace, it is often hard to stop and think of others in a deep and meaningful way. With Emotional Intelligence comprised of our ability to recognise our own emotions and those of others, we have to cultivate the ability to both comprehend and relate to those around us and validate their feelings by our understanding.

Unfortunately for all of us, no one comes out of formal education – irrespective of how extensive or on what topic it may have been on – with any wealth of knowledge regarding the topic of emotions and behaviours.

When we have to live and work in this VUCA world we have to remain intentionally flexible to be able to adapt and roll with the punches.

Humour has immense unifying power. We see a huge correlation between the presence of humour in a team and not only their engagement indicators but more importantly, their resilience.

To mitigate against Impression Management, the Impression Management Counters encourage your team to work on reflective logs to understand how and when they have not spoken up that day or week.

In a world of dynamic teams, we often have to come together fast and be in different teams at different stages at the same time. This requires an ability and a toolkit to form and bond that team in a quick but still real way so you can trust each other and outperform your competition.

Teams who learn together, perform together. In particular in our VUCA world of breakneck speed in technology, continuous learning is paramount! This is why we measure learning in the dashboard – so that we can be sure team members learn both individually and as a group.

Every team needs a kickstarter, but what’s just as important is to do re-launches (this playbook works for both) when you need them, or even better before you need them.

Teams tend to think they know each other really well if they have spent some time together. Unfortunately, due to how the workplace has been mired with unquestioned convention that we are to keep our private persona separated from our work persona, this isn’t always the case. High performing teams often report their team feels like a close-knit family. For teams to perform well together they need to have a tight emotional bond and that can not be accomplished in the absence of sharing emotionally significant details about their lives. The true meaning of “engagement” is whether or not people have the ability to relate to each other and empathise as they care about each other and that ability is predicated on how intimately they know each other. This exercise will help replace years of asking for details about each other that may have been stifled by impression management or how we thought being “professional” means being unemotional and not sharing human details with one’s team mates.