When the performance by the management team falls below its intrinsic potential

To move the team away from these dysfunctional phenomena I provide a structure that facilitates keen dialogue. I also train members in problem-solving communication. When the structure and members’ practising their new communication skills are combined, a shift occurs. Prior to the shift, members tend to address me. I intervene by challenging the phenomena mentioned above and I encourage members to stop addressing me, instead to talk amongst themselves.

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When they start doing precisely that, I know the shift has occurred. My leadership role changes from directing events to highlighting forks in the road and providing feedback to the team. In this new climate of curious exploration, the team establishes its purpose, roles and methods of evaluation and of increasing efficiency. Productivity, cohesion, and satisfaction grow. The end result is a management team that has realised its intrinsic potential.

Would you like to know more?

The secret of successful management team development is not so much about the content. There are, after all, numerous books and research articles that already tell us any management team needs to clearly define its purpose. Individuals need to understand the difference between their managerial roles and their management team member roles. The team needs to establish methods for evaluating its processes, thus enabling continuous increase in efficiency. The check list is longer, but let's move on to the bigger challenge of management team development: process facilitation.

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It concerns managing things that lurk below the surface or sit glaringly obvious above it. Examples are endless debates or inaction. Experiences of not being listened to or even ignored. Polarisation and entrenched positions. Psychological phenomena that live lives of their own: Old truths about the less well-functioning aspects of the team, which become self-fulfilling prophecies; speculations about the hidden agendas of others; in vain attempts to predict the future instead of setting goals and making plans based on available facts.