Maximize Team Effectivess by Keeping Structure in Place

As I worked with a great instructional leadership team yesterday including principals, assistants and teacher leaders (some central office admins too) it reminded me of the benefits of team structure when groups are asked to function as teams. If you have more than five members on your team, you will benefit from defining roles and following a structured approach to your meetings as well as projects.

It's not rocket science, but it does require a bit of discipline. More and more teams I work with (department, project or leadership) don't approach their team with any type of defined structure and act more as a group of individuals vs. a collaborative team. So what can you do with your team?

1. Create a team charter, a plan for your team that defines the following (usually done in a single meeting)

• Team mission - purpose for working together
• Team values - agreed upon and defined guidelines for working together (5-7 of these)
• Team roles - sponsor, leader, facilitator (internal/external and depend on the size of your team), members
  
• Team goal(s) - desired outcomes the team will be responsible for
• Resources needed by the team ($, materials, labor, people, etc.)

2. Don't skip the team building stuff that allows your team to connect as individuals

• Ensure you all understand each others' communication/behavioral styles, work tendencies and personal commitments to the team
• Professional and some level of personal trust must be in place
• Keep a focus on this element of team building throughout your work together
• Minimize the forming/storming phases and get to the norming/performing stages quickly
  

3. Use meeting plans that include the following information (request a sample plan from me)

• Meeting purpose
• Team members attending
• Agenda items with descriptions and or information needed by members for each item
• Time allotments
• Call to action for each agenda item including a "who" that will own it
• Practice good meeting process by sticking to agendas and "parking" side info

4. Team leaders, fulfill your leadership responsibilities

• Keep a "Eagle's Eye" view on things that includes a perspective on your team working within the entire department/organization (which is the bigger team)
  
• Keep the structure in place for the team and meetings
• Maintain a focus on the mission and values of the team
• Engage all members
• Secure support from your sponsor and the resources needed for success
  
• Hold members accountable for being prepared for meetings and taking action on their specified assignments
• Ensure measures are used and goals/objectives are being met
• Celebrate

I have the pleasure of working with a lot of great teams as well as individual team leaders and members. A simple structure/framework adds consistency to the team process and ensures team goals and objectives are met. Every team who participates in our team building exercises have agreed that they would have benefited from a few minutes of planning, selecting a leader to keep things in control and considering how they were defining "team" (their small group or the group as a whole when it came to resource allocation and best practice sharing).

How is does your team rate? Download our manual scoring Teams4Levels Assessment and Scoring sheet (we can set-up an online team survey for only $300/team that includes a feedback comments section and great reporting for use with your team).

Make it a great end of the week. Coach Bob.

Education in Action

Time flies when we are having fun (or at the very least, extremely busy). It is already the end of another school year. I can't believe how fast the year has gone. Now it is about wrapping things up and enjoying a little bit of summer.

Part of our summer fun will be getting together some teacher leadership teams for our July 22-23 Teacher Leadership in Action Conference. We will hold it here in Rochester at St. John Fisher College. If you have not heard about this PD event, I will be glad to put you in touch with previous attendees. The teams that have attended have really enjoyed themselves as well as taken away specific action plans to implement instructional change in their schools.

In addition to this session, we will kick-off our Principal Leadership in Action Coaching & Development process with registered principals and assistant principals for the 2009-2010 school year. This is a comprehensive one-to-one coaching program that includes a School Leadership Development 360 as well as school-based support. This year's participants shared that this process has been the best PD experience that they have ever had.

I will be happy to share the details on either of these programs with you, just contact me by phone or e-mail. Also, keep a look out for our new Education in Action E-News Letter that will be out shortly. Quick articles featuring strategies, links and resources that you can use to develop your leadership skills, team collaboration and school culture.