We are well aware that we are experiencing an unprecedented crisis worldwide. We have been forced to change our habits and to work in conditions never seen before.
Companies had to complete a digital and mentality transformation in a few days which, in normal conditions, would have taken months, if not years. We are all in serious difficulty, especially as regards the economic sphere, with a reduced or even zero turnover. The prospects for the economy and living conditions are dramatic.
We at Teamworking also had to rethink our work. We have always worked on experiential training through events, but in this new context we have decided to change our approach. That’s why we built a new personalized Team Coaching online path.
TEAMWORKING STAYS BY YOUR SIDE!
As we said, international companies from all over the world were forced to complete a digital and mentality transformation in a few days which in normal conditions would have taken months, if not years. Confusion, a lack of clarity, a sense of inadequacy towards the challenge are inevitable.
Managing a team that works remotely is a challenge for everyone, and doing it without the proper preparation is even more complex. It is important not to lose alignment with the objectives and the overall view now to continue working at its best.
We are used to and we much prefer to meet the participants live in our Team Coaching sessions and we can’t wait to start doing it with you again, but we don’t want to give up on this. We’ll stay by your side and we’ll help you go through this situation.
To overcome this sad moment with you, we thought of Team Coaching online. In particular, at this moment there is a need for:
We often talk about business and working methods, but we rarely work on what we live inside the office, also in relation to colleagues. It is precisely for this reason that the first phase, Alignment, is the backbone of the whole journey.
The company’s Vision and Mission must be formulated and clarified, but also and above all shared and explained to all the Team members.
This will be the starting point for identifying the reference values ​​on which to set the work, the skills and the necessary behaviors, and the relationship with the environment in which the company is operating.
In our Team Coaching online process, we try together with you to understand if the corporate Vision already exists and is shared by everyone or if you have to start from the beginning and work together to ensure that it is concretized. If the company already had solid Vision and Mission, it is still important to understand how much these are still current or how they can be changed over time.
Especially in a moment of change and novelty such as the one we are experiencing, in fact, it is often very useful to rethink strategies, to find new ones.
It is not easy to align a team that works remotely. We do it using the tools of Visual Facilitation. This practice summarizes the set of tools that are able to make you think in images, to focus attention on visual-spatial intelligence, thus stimulating the imaginative and creative ability.
It is possible to represent the Vision, Mission and company Values ​​even just using pen and paper. By drawing or writing we can focus better on an object. In this way, we can try to draw to think and this will bring us several advantages including:
The change and the crisis in progress place us in front of a new challenge: to resist in conditions of strong stress, physical and above all psychological. This stress is mainly due to the request to work harder and better than before in order to be ready for recovery when the emergency is over.
Moving employees from office work to smart working at home has also dramatically changed work and time management. Physical presence and direct communication fade away, while many domestic distractions come forward.
Usually in defining priorities and the time needed, all companies move following the Eisenhower matrix. Obviously, the use of this matrix is ​​not an error, but we prefer to follow the “The One Thing” criterion, that is the definition of the primary objective.
A common habit is the creation of to-do lists, but these do not help manage team time. In this situation where daily life is turned upside down, in our Team Coaching online sessions we propose a model that we normally call “Success list“, in this period for some companies we know that it can be a rescue.
It becomes essential now to organize the work according to the criterion known as “The One Thing”. It is important to understand what the main objective is, thanks to which everything else becomes secondary. Once the primary objective to be achieved has been defined, the maximum of the work must be focused on it, and the rest of the work is rearranged accordingly.
It seems trivial to say that communication is the basis of any effective team work and yet it is not always so obvious. We live in a world in which there is a lot of talk about communication but this, in order to be such, must be effective. In addition, it must also be consistent with the actions. Consciously or unconsciously, we often try to communicate in words opposite concepts compared to those realized with concrete actions. The purpose of communication training is to make this problem explicit in order to solve it.
Communicating and understanding each other even when talking face to face is more difficult than you think. In this period, the physical distance dictated by smart working makes us reflect on the difficulties of having effective communication. However, it also allows us to reflect on this issue and to work on best practices that will remain precious even in moments of shared work in the office.
Each of the participants (or, at the choice of the company, some prominent personalities of the team) will be able to test their distance communication skills, explaining to the collaborators simple and visual concepts. By comparing the result obtained with what was indicated, we realize any shortcomings or difficulties: from this point, then, we can start on the path of improvement.
The simplest, which can be easily found in every home: paper, pen and markers or other everyday objects!
If a good leader recognizes himself in the crisis management, the period we’re living is the “best” opportunity to discover the strengths and weaknesses of the company’s leadership. Obviously, it is not the right time to make criticisms but it is the perfect time to get to work so as to improve the language of leadership and consequently also the performance and effectiveness of the team.
The leadership styles may be different based on the characteristics of the company, however the important thing remains the consistency of the message and the ability to stay close to its employees.
Creating an environment of trust in which communication flows without hindrance, and the indications are clear and unambiguous: this is the challenge facing the leading figures of the teams today.
The Assessment phase is a refund on people’s preferences. It helps us understand where and how we work best by analyzing our person and personality. Understanding how we are made and how others are made helps us above all in interacting with colleagues, as we can better understand the reasons behind certain behaviors.
It also helps us understand each person’s specific skills. Everyone has potential: understanding how they impact the way we communicate is an important element in team management.
Compared to the more traditional types of training, Experiential Training has the advantage of working also through the subconscious. It is a methodology that puts the team in front of emotionally engaging and impactful experiences. In practice, through it, we try to make concrete moments live by combining the logical level with the emotional level.
Challenges and problem-solving activities that are only apparently playful give way to team members to manifest skills and attitudes that can be hidden in everyday business.
In this situation, colleagues have the opportunity to get to know each other from a new point of view and to develop less formal and more effective ways of communication and collaboration.
With experiential training we put ourselves at stake concretely and creating our own strategy. Coaches have the role of observing the functioning of the group and keeping track of the attitudes and strategies developed. The initial briefing and the final debriefing then take on particular importance, in which the trainers confront the team and examine the dynamics of the work together.
To overcome this sad moment with you, we thought of digital Team Building and Stream Building.
The change that has been imposed on us by the Coronavirus emergency has been sudden and profound. Some may have already been used to working from home, others may have experienced it dramatically. Coping with it required a lot of effort from companies and employees. The good news is that this effort will pay off for a long time, if it will also be put to good use in the future.
Change Management is in fact a theme that does not go out of style, since the market is today more flexible and unpredictable than in any past era.
Learning to adapt faster than competitors can be a huge advantage for the company. But even better would be knowing how to innovate quickly enough to recognize and guide the coming change.
This is therefore the lesson we can learn from today’s emergency. The corporate structure must become increasingly flexible and adaptable, but also resistant to effort, to withstand any possible future conditions – however unpredictable.