My team and I have partnered with hundreds of teams across the globe, all looking to take their performance to the next level. These team effectiveness sessions are planned and designed in partnership with the team and team leader, and they focus on HOW business gets done, not just WHAT needs to be achieved. It’s one of the many things I love about the work we do. 

Done well, team effectiveness sessions can have a powerful and lasting impact. Done poorly, team sessions become a nightmare that will undermine future efforts. The ill-conceived trust-falls or “fun-fun-fun” but with no business focus or outcome team building activities all result in team effectiveness getting a bad rap. 

Here are three mistakes to avoid when planning your team effectiveness session or offsite. 

Can you do that in an hour? 

When a gap on the agenda is the driving force behind a team development request, we run. Yes, we could provide something that fits in the one-hour time slot you have (which in all likelihood will be condensed to 45 minutes as your other agenda items run over), but this would not do you, or us, any good. 

A quick fill-the-time-activity will invariably just scratch at the surface, be perceived as fluff, and further undermine the credibility of any future teamwork efforts. Our experience tells us that it took you more than 45 minutes to get into the situation you want resolved, so be prepared to invest the appropriate amount of time, care, and attention to get yourselves out of it. 

Looking for the silver bullet 

A team that is struggling does not fix itself with a single event. At SkyeTeam we are very good at what we do, however, we can’t work miracles. Though, many of our clients wish we could. There is unlikely to be one single solution that will solve the team’s challenges. If there were, you would have done it by now! (At least, I hope you would’ve.) 

We were discussing this issue with a leader recently who commented that it was less of a silver-bullet that was needed and more like a silver BB gun. In other words, they wanted little steps that together help to transform the team. 

All talk, no action 

A team effectiveness session, planned and executed well, will result in powerful conversation, new understanding, a common language, and framework that defines high performance and a clear plan of action to achieve success. All great stuff. Team members will leave feeling good about uncovering some of the “un-discussable topics” that may have been holding them back. 

Too many teams stop at this point.  Fail to implement the actions and commitments that were made.  The team session will be a waste of time without ACTION. To be successful there has to be a change in behavior, individually and collectively.