Re-teaming, what is it and how do you do it?

How are your teams working? Have you lost staff in the ‘great resignation’? Are you moving towards a more blended working approach? Do you need to ‘re-team’?

Team development is always an ongoing journey, and right now it is more important than ever.

What with remote working and the challenges it throws up, digital meetings crowding the calendar, families and pets joining in, meeting new recruits from the neck up only, changing to leadership and management styles to meet changing circumstances (or not), increase/decrease in workload, furlough, wellbeing… Not to mention long periods of sick leave and other issues. It’s not surprising that some teams are struggling to cope.

We’ve seen an increase in enquiries in team development from existing teams. They are wanting to re-establish relationships in this changed world, to agree new ways of working, rebuild trust, and step up together to the challenges they now face. They are wanting to gain clarity over their purpose and roles in a new world. They hope that through acknowledging and building on their experiences as a team, they’ll develop a more positive work culture.

how do We re-team?

If this is something that resonates with you, here are three top tips from us that you can use to help your team ‘re-team’:

1. Get beyond the usual chat

   1. You need to rebuild relationships in a changed world. Slow down your rush into work / action talk and seek to spend a little bit longer finding out what lies beneath, beyond, behind the thinking. It will help you both re-establish rapport and discover what has changed. When work has been remote for some time, your information and knowledge about work situations, politics, strategy etc may be different. People’s take on it may have changed. Find out their hopes and fears for the future both individually and as a team. This will also help you build psychological safety in the room.

2. Re-establish your team’s purpose

   1. Why are you here as a team? What does success look like for you? If you get each person to write down what they think, you may be surprised as you go around the room how different everyone’s take is. Spend time on this as a team to work out what you are here to do, in order to help you all prioritise and make decisions that support getting there. This is true for any team, but especially when some people are remote and when access to one another might be limited by calendars full of Zoom or Teams meetings. Help people make decisions that take the whole team forward and encourage each other to talk about how and why they have done this.

3. Explore the challenges you face and how to approach them together

   1. It is amazing how much that old adage ‘a problem shared is a problem halved’ is true. Encourage one another to be honest about the challenges you face and how you might support one another to face them. You can use what you’ve learned from the first two tips to help you prioritise and decide on the best approach.

These three are some great steps you can take to re-team and get back some fun and energy into your team work. After all, none of us come to work to have a horrible time. Let’s reconnect, do some team development and start enjoying it again.

Oh and if you’d like some help organising and facilitating this? You know where to come.

Leadership, Soft Skills / September 30th, 2021