Team development focuses on the long term health and performance of a mutually dependent group: on the people and how they work together, and on the work at hand.
“Does a great job of keeping things real, relevant, and on track. His perspective is fresh and his experience outside our company is valuable to our strategy and objectives.”
– Retail Store Manager
Building effective teams
The paradox of a high performing team: each individual has to bring their highly competitive “A” game to the common purpose of the group. This is only possible when:
- Anything and everything is discussable
- Every member of the team is willing to bring their best effort and ideas
- Individuals speak candidly and openly about how they see things
- Even the “all stars” follow the best idea regardless of the source
I provide development support to:
- Align leadership teams on mission and strategy to achieve outstanding results
- Guide cross-functional teams to define and achieve mutual success
- Strengthen the leadership and effectiveness of groups of project teams in action learning and quality improvement efforts
How it works:
- Assessment of where results are and are not meeting expectations
- Identification of what’s going well, and where improvement is needed to optimize:
- clear goals and performance expectations
- how your team gets things done, assigns accountability, and follows up
- role clarity and distribution of work
- quality, openness, and authenticity of both communication and working relationships
- Collaborative design of custom team-building events (skill development, process consultation, and feedback)
- Facilitation (real-time action, reflection and feedback–leading to innovative thinking)
- ‘Just in time’ learning (short modules on problem-solving, decision-making, communication, leadership style, etc.)
- Follow-through (assessment of implementation, results on key goals and agreements)
jon@jonanastasio.com
425-922-5331
Case studies
These are summaries of how I used real time learning to create authentic dialogue within teams and helped participants behave as partners united by a common purpose rather than competitors.
Feuding Execs Become High-Performing Team
Challenge: The EVP of Marketing left the organization and his three direct reports all saw themselves as ready to succeed him. But each had unique strengths and the company President needed them to retain them. Previously, the three were responsible for multiple functions that competed for resources, with the former EVP as tie breaker. Now those decisions had to be made collaboratively for the good of the entire business.
Strategy: Set priorities from a one-company perspective. Learn to function as a leadership team with clear decision rules regarding collaboration and independence. Learn to communicate a consistent and unified message to the marketing organization and their customers in the business.
Result: Clear roles and accountabilities were divided among the three. Common leadership tasks they owned together were agreed. The resulting clarity of mission and message renewed the organization. The company President left the team in place on the strength of their achievements in efficiency, cost reduction and creative, innovative marketing solutions including an award winning TV ad campaign.
Siloed IT functions unified; $52 million saved; no lay-offs
Challenge: Individual business units within the company could contract with segments of the IT function for one-off solutions, creating a patched-together web of systems that did not “talk” to each other. Recent and anticipated growth of the company was straining existing tools and systems to the breaking point. The new CIO needed to create an integrated IT strategy for the company, and fashion that solution out of a collection of disconnected, competing departments.
Strategy: Create a team to design a year-long organizational change initiative to break down silos, built collaboration and teamwork among previously competing functions, and create a united leadership team able to address issues of governance, people leadership, process improvement, and tools development.
Result: The mindset of IT was shifted from functional specialties to customer-focused business solutions. IT costs were reduced by $52 million, with no write-offs (or lay-offs). Five years later, the core leadership team is known for authentic, open dialogue, and a mindset that puts the customer first.