Facilitating a Dysfunctional Team

1. Facilitating a Dysfunctional Team Blue Group

2. Blue Group

3. Blue Group’s Initial Action... • General analysis of the case study and identification of the apparent issues to include: • An awareness of the resources that all group members bring to the case study from own experiences and study • Initial offering of solutions based on these resources

4. The nature of ‘teamworking’ • High performing teams show the following characteristics: (ref: Katzenbach and Smith,1993) • Interdependence: • A shared commitment to a goal that cannot be achieved without contribution from all team members. • Development Time: • To achieve high performance as a team takes at least several months and a significant amount of contact between members. • Size: • It is rare to find a high performing team with more than 6 to 12 members.

5. Current state: • This team shows the following characteristics: • Interdependence: • The majority appear to value independent personal performance in the classroom over any group performance measurement. • Development Time: • The group appears not to have met once as a whole group and no team process discussions have taken place. • Size: • There are 20 people in the group.

6. Summary of Issues Identified... • Lack of visible team leadership / management • Lack of shared values / goals • Lack of cross team communication • No real team / set of dysfunctional sub teams • Failure to incorporate new team members fully into the team • Manager – too much focus on administration • Little or no intention to improve the situation • Action points at meetings are not followed through

7. Action Plan for Completion of task!

8. The ingredients for success: • A clear goal to which everyone is committed and none can achieve without working with their colleagues • Propose ‘a good OFSTED’ as a goal to unite with clear ‘whole group’ performance measures reviewed regularly • Effective communications process for whole group • Propose Leader engages in one-to-one conversations, site meetings and occasional whole group briefings. • Sub groups that can become effective teams • Develop site teams who then collaborate as the larger team

9. Step one • Defining the shared goal • We researched the OFSTED requirements and used them as the basis for establishing a set of whole group performance measures which could only be achieved through effective collaboration

10. Summary of Ofsted Research... • It is very important to obtain a ‘good’ grade in an inspection if the institution wishes to keep Ofsted inspection activities to a minimum • It is crucial that everyone works together to maintain effectiveness due to the length of time that inspectors are present • Self-Assessment Report (SAR) needs to reflect or be better than the live situation or the overall outcome suffers • Inspectors collect evidence from a whole range of sources including lesson observation, learner testimonials, learners work, minutes of meetings at senior management and team level • Inspectors look for standardisation, interaction of teams teaching the same subject across different groups, differentiation, attendance and punctuality.

11. G******’s Final Thought... ‘So we can see it is important for everybody to be working together to the same goal and stay focused. It is better as a team, for if for any reason one person is missing it can be much more easily covered from within the team, than if all are individuals. It is about ownership of the whole learning process and not just the delivery’

12. Step Two • Developing Communications • There is currently competition (for resources and for results) and resentment (it’s other people letting the department down/I’m being undermined) within the department. • The individuals need to be able to express (and let go of) their current feelings. First one to one with the leader, then in site groups. • Once site groups are at stage three of Tuckman’s (1965) team development model then the whole team meeting can take place.

13. T****’s Words of Wisdom... ‘If we are going to try and manage this group of 20 as a single team then some ground work will need to be done with individuals before the meeting that creates a new beginning...I would therefore suggest a prior action for the leader to spend time with each team member, on their patch, listening (empathetically) to their concerns and issues (draining down any metaphorical poison) and coaching them appropriately. The goal will be to ensure each individual arrives at the meeting with an open mind, a willingness to hear other people’s views and an understanding that everyone in the team shares a commitment to the students and acts with the best possible motives.’

14. Step Three • Defining the shared goal • OFSTED requirements do create a shared goal • The leader has worked with individuals and site groups laying the foundations for whole team performance. • A whole team meeting (including administrators) is now required to involve the team in agreeing the goal and the measures of performance that would unite them.

15. Lynn’s Agenda for Change...

17. G*****’s direction The basis of the first meeting would be an open session where any body can say what they want with no recrimination, this helps get some of the tensions out in the open that seem to exist between certain parties. Then the team should be steered to come to the conclusion on the focus of the remaining development session, this could be the preparation for Ofsted.

18. Step Four • Team Size • The whole team of 20 will remain unwieldy and unlikely to gel effectively as a team. • From the whole team meeting, with the agreement of that whole team, we propose three sub teams based on the client groups: • Primary • Secondary • Graduate

19. G****’s sub groups Once they have found the focus, they will have ownership of it. From here it is about breaking the group of 18 teachers and technologist into smaller groups, possibly primary education, secondary education and graduate education. The large group can then break up in too the smaller groups. These groups set themselves tasks that need to be completed prior to the next meeting. One purpose of the smaller groups is to look at their own strengths and weakness and look at support each other.

20. Leadership • Part of the original diagnosis was that the leader of the team was too engaged with administration • Developing this team will require significant, people focused, leadership work • The leader will have to commit to spending time with staff, both in meetings and (more often) informally sharing time with them to intercept issues before they grow • The leader will need support in doing this from their line management

21. In summary • Leader to work with individuals and site groups prior to a whole group meeting • Whole group meet to establish shared goals centering on the OFSTED requirements for measures of whole group performance • Sub groups established to work together as effective teams • Appropriate support provided through people focused leadership