Bite sized seminars - Creative Teams

A 1½ hour practical seminar on making your team, or the teams in your organization more effective. Gives experience of using ice-breakers, warmups and timeouts in getting teams working more effectively and energetically together, then moves on to the use of techniques to solve problems and generate new ideas in groups. Costs £800 each, or available for small groups at our individual rate of £125/head (minimum 3 attendees).

Teams can deliver both the best and the worst of human interaction. A high-functioning team provides true synergy – more than the sum of the input from its individual members. A poorly functioning team will be pulling in so many different directions that the few achievements it makes are likely to have negative impact. For a team to be effective it has to be creative – to produce something that didn’t exist before the team’s intervention. The aim of this bite-sized session is to give a team the tools and techniques it needs to deliver creatively.

Outline

Introduction – who the speaker is, why we are here, warm-up exercise exploring team interaction
Why bother? – Why we need to do something about teamwork, driven by the participants own ideas.
Can anything be done? – Can teamwork be artificially improved? The six key features: trust, communication, overcoming blockages, understanding personality differences, process management and fun.
The limitations of teams – Teams aren’t best at everything, so before launching into making teams work better we need to know where a team can get in the way
The blockers – It is also essential to have a good understanding of the way team members block contributions from others to be able to spot and overcome this very natural tendency. An interactive session building a spotter’s guide to blockers.
Trust and communication – Without trust and communication it’s impossible to work together effectively. A short exercise demonstrating the impact of trust and communication and exploration of the factors that can build both.
Why are they like that? – Our personality types tend to make us suspicious of the input and approach of others. Without taking on the baggage and complexity of a full-blown personality type indicator, attendees can get a good grasp of their own tendencies, and share these with the group.
Process and state of mind – The final section of the event looks at the first practical steps to more effective teamwork. By applying a more structured approach to team effort, and by giving using simple techniques to enhance the state of mind of the group, any team can function more effectively. As part of this section the group will try out a sample exercise designed to enhance team-building state of mind.

Click to download a detailed session information sheet.

We provide free ebooks with all our seminars, but if you would like to give away a book to attendees, which can hugely reinforce the event, our recommended book for this event is Instant Creativity .

We provide free ebooks with all our seminars, but if you would like to give away a book to attendees, which can hugely reinforce the event, our recommended book for this event is Imagination Engineering.

 Process and state of mind – The final section of the event looks at the first practical steps to more effective teamwork. By applying a more structured approach to team effort, and by giving using simple techniques to enhance the state of mind of the group, any team can function more effectively. As part of this section the group will try out a sample exercise designed to enhance team-building state of mind.