Thirty-six per cent of recent graduates have deficient team and interpersonal competencies. Also, according to the article Team Development Interventions: Evidence-Based Approaches for Improving Teamwork, only 21 per cent of managers believe their organisations have the expertise to develop cross-functional teams, which a management team in my experience always is. So in this post I’m going to reflect on what the article has to say about four research-based approaches that ca

”You really are a pain sometimes.” ”Why, thank you kind sir”, I replied, thinking the CEO’s remark meant that I had done my job. I had, after all, for two days been challenging him and the members in his management team rather than going along with communication patterns that preserve status quo. When writing about communication, I sometimes imagine my esteemed reader thinking I am a stereotypical psychologist, promoting cosiness in the team. It is a bit more complex than tha

“We have a hard time generating energy in our virtual meetings.” This statement came up in a coaching session I was holding and it resonated with similar stories I have heard from other managers I have been working with in recent months. I will approach the solution to this problem by addressing something that readers who have worked with me in management team development will undoubtedly recognise. Among the first things I do when I start working with a team, is to discuss t

With these five words a manager described how a colleague had changed over the past six months. The observation was put into words during a recent management team development exercise as we discussed the challenges the organisation had been facing lately. The manager in question reasoned that although having all the right technical tools in place, the organisation lacked a frame of reference and a routine when working remotely. So, what should we be thinking about when it com

Ever wondered why individuals, teams, and perhaps the entire organisation once in a while behave in a way that none of the people involved really believes is functional? If so, then you have very likely seen systemic forces at play. Understanding them is a requisite for developing an organisation. Although on paper I suggest the general concept of systems theory is easy to understand, I want to use another type of paper – toilet paper – to illustrate my point. Let’s think bac