Team and Interpersonal Dynamics

Assertiveness skills

• Understanding assertive behaviour, passivity, and aggression.
• Key assertive skills to becoming more assertive.
• Understanding your own assertive profile as well as others.
• Shifting mindsets and beliefs to change from within.
• Action planning for future – sustaining behaviour changes.

Communication skills

• Understanding key communication techniques.
• Understanding barriers to effective communication.
• Determining where you are in terms of communication profiles.
• Getting a message across and receiving a message.
• Verbal and non-verbal communication variables.
• Using the telephone as a medium.
• How you come across.
• Using your voice more effectively.
• Managing your image.

Harnessing diversity

• Understanding stress and recognizing and addressing symptoms.
• Distress vs. Eustress
• Identifying your stress tolerance levels and your profile so that you can make stress work for you.
• How the environment impacts stress levels.
• Interpersonal skills to reduce stress from social interactions where conflict is prevalent.
• Skills to manage stress.

Team building

Team building has various interpretations. We recommend that the true intent of any initiative is questioned in order to determine what kind of session is truly required.  An example of questions that will be asked:

• How would you describe the dynamics within the team at the moment?
• How long have you worked together?
• How well do you know one another?
• Do you function as one team?
• Is your purpose clear?
• What are the typical things you are struggling with most of the time?
• What are you as a team really good at?
• What are you ultimately hoping to achieve through a team intervention?
• Do you want to play?
• Do you want to strategize and think?
• Do you want to build relationships that have been distorted for some reason?
• Do you want a combination or a dynamic kind of session with a bit of the above customized to meet our particular need?

Fun/Play

• Variety of and/or design of various team activities
• Giant inflatable course
• Outdoor activities
• Groups challenges
• Individual challenges

Strategy

• This approach is more applicable should the team wish to reflect on previous accomplishments, as well as invest time in allocating ways forward or aligning internal methods to business objectives with clear agreements of accountabilities.

Trust/Relationships

• This intervention is recommended with a focus on intrapersonal reflection, interpersonal communication and team identification. Relations are restored through a willingness to clarify and confront matters. Open and honest dialogue is encouraged and the team leaves with a sense of connectedness.

General outcomes

• Communication within the team. The consequences of a breakdown in communication (interpersonal and performance) would be measured and again linked back to the previous section, in terms of streamlining and enhancing the process.
• Trust and co-operation within the team and how it is impacting conflict levels.
• Role clarity and empowerment within the team.
• Managing the boundaries and the setting of team parameters.
• Recognizing and harnessing the diverse talents and traits of the whole team.
• Motivational elements.
• Dealing with change and the cycle of change.
• Breaking down barriers on a social level, and getting to know one another outside the work environment.
• Focusing on the attitude component pertinent to the individual within the team structure.
• To get the team to develop a proactive orientation and initiative.