From the Ashes: Bringing New Life to a Low-Performing Team

Situation: A newly appointed head of a large, dynamic organization was concerned with how effectively her team was performing. Through her onboarding process, she learned that not all of the members on her new team were satisfied with the team’s functioning. This was causing division within the team and the creation of dysfunctional silos in the organization. In order to have a more comprehensive and objective understanding of her team, she requested that all direct reports participate along with her in Beard Executive Consulting’s High-Performing Team webinar.

The DNA of Leadership Webinar Series: A solution for teams that are experiencing less-than-satisfactory results, Beard Executive Consulting offers 12 unique DNA of Leadership Webinars to solve the issues that organizations face on a daily basis. The Building High-Performing Teams webinar was the ideal solution for this particular team, providing an interactive way for them to reengage and gain essential characteristics required to thrive and survive. Through a case study, custom assessments, and personalized content, the 90-minute format gives leaders information and tools to develop behaviors that are targeted for the positions they hold.

The Process: Prior to the webinar, each team member and their new manager were given an online survey in which they could rate the team’s performance from their own perspective. In addition, team members were sent pre-reading to provide context for the webinar. The meeting was conducted in a live, online setting in order to optimally accommodate everyone’s busy schedules.

The Webinar: To enhance learning, a digital workbook was used during the webinar and the manager was provided with a leader’s manual to help guide implementation of changes post-webinar. The presentation identified two critical metrics that were found to be lower than others for this team, based on the overall survey results:

• Productivity: The degree to which a team’s output is achieved in a quality manner that is timely and meets the expectations of the initiative.
  
• Vitality: The degree to which team members experience cohesiveness and engagement, and have high morale.
  

This discovery meant that the team as a whole was functioning at a level that was far below both the training and backgrounds of individual team members, and required focused efforts in these areas in order to improve and become high-performing. The team then learned about the key components that were required for this level of change, and gained an understanding of the areas that required improvement.

New Life as a High-Performing Team: Based on the results of the webinar and guidance from Beard Executive Consulting, the new leader assembled a small subgroup of her team to create and implement a plan to ensure that the team would become more productive and would do so in a way that increased engagement and cohesiveness. A six-month follow-up survey found that the team had improved in both metrics and that team members had become much more involved with, and supportive of, each other. A positive side effect was that the new leader had gained the respect and admiration of those on her team.   

For information on how you can use this webinar to assist your team, contact us at: MyronBeard@BeardExecutiveConsulting.com.