Team Leaders™ A New Model for New Teams

Launching a new team can be both expensive and risky. If this also involves investment in a new business unit or a long term project, the risk can extend from the local and operational right through to the organisational and strategic.
Most managers and HR specialists would accept that investing in the development of a new team can deliver rapid and very cost effective payback. Sadly, in a crowded market where everything from paintballing to role playing is presented as the universal fix; the choice can be overwhelming and the value case unconvincing.
Team Leaders was launched to provide a professional and credible new team development service in direct response to this situation. Whilst maintaining much of the energy and positivity associated with traditional team building; Team Leaders use a range of proven models and techniques delivered and supported by experts with extensive delivery, management and organisational experience.

Our approach is focussed heavily on aligning team culture and performance with the needs of the business and the broader stakeholder environment. We develop teams who have the capabilities and confidence to continue to develop and grow in response to new challenges long after we have gone. Our focus is on delivering real self-sustaining value. We deliver a process, not just a programme.

Credible

Team Leaders is a joint venture between Mike Brough of Rethread Consulting and Alan Brenton, Director of Change for Real. Between them, they have over 20 years of new team development experience and 30 years of management and leadership experience in private, public and voluntary sectors. Mike and Alan hold a range of high level qualifications directly relevant to this field. They have delivered new team programmes ranging from the executive team of Britain’s best known furniture retailer to the emergency line repairs teams for a national power supplier. Mike is a member of the CIPD and Alan a Fellow of the CMI.

Business Focussed
Traditional team building tends to focus on ‘fun’ or possibly looks at behaviours. We believe these to be important baseline ingredients of an effective process, but only really a start point. We develop winning teams by:

• Working with you at the earliest possible stage to develop a clarity on the vision, structure and approach which will identify the new team as a success.

• Agreeing on a very clear view of the components of success – creating a performance dashboard which guides and supports the performance of everyone involved.

• Supporting selection and induction processes to ensure best fit with the intended outputs.

• Identifying key processes and how the team can best succeed in working with these.

A Professional, Robust Approach.
We will drive hard ensuring that these essential components are embedded, following our results focussed 3 stage process:

1. Developing a Team Vision
Working with the team to identify what they need to do and be if they are to successfully deliver value in the short, medium and long term. What are their strengths and styles and how can they develop these to build a group culture which will deliver success against the strategic vision? What do they have to do to be successful in the eyes of key stakeholders?

2. Creating a Team Brand
How does the team want to be seen by clients, internal customers and other key stakeholders? How do they create a climate of leadership and positive challenge that will ensure constant development and delivery of objectives? What do they have to believe and value in order to create the brand?

3. Generating Sustainable Performance
What needs to happen to create and sustain a high performance culture? What practical, tangible things can the team do to support, develop and sustain a culture of ongoing self and group development? How will they achieve their ‘team charter’?
A Sound, Business Focussed Process


World Class Value

We operate on a low fixed cost model. This means that we can be flexible, responsive and dynamic. We have created Team Leaders because we believe we’re good at it and the need for the service exists. We’re not junior staff working our way up to delivering leadership programmes; we’re experienced senior practitioners delivering high value outputs at a highly competitive market rate. In terms of value delivery, we believe that we’re unbeatable!

Talk to Us

We hope you’ve read enough to be interested? But you can’t put 50 years of experience and qualification onto two sides of A4 (we have tried!) You’ll find our approach to be personable, professional and very positive. In short, we believe that you’ll enjoy meeting with us.

We don’t do hard sell; it just isn’t the right approach for us. We believe in allowing our experience, track record and style to speak. In short, if you’re thinking of engaging with a team development partner, we believe that we should be the first one to call.

You can contact:

Mike on:
Mob: 07595 166104
E: mike.brough@team-leaders.co.uk
Alan on:
Tel: 0845 8620016
Mob: 07536 103499
E: alan.brenton@team-leaders.co.uk

UK Election 2010 – Change theory and the ‘Wisdom of Crowds’ suggests no change of Government

There is a general acceptance that change happens when the forces for change overwhelm the forces of stability. This can be negative (or away from) as in the “I’ve had enough of this” scenario or positive (and towards) as in “I fancy some of that”. Depending upon personal preference or culture you are likely to be mainly a ‘towards’ or an ‘away from’ person.

So, back to the election. In the autumn of 2009, the economy was shaky, the media generally managed to find a cloud for the rare and occasional silver linings and the electorate were generally annoyed (if anti-government) or disappointed (if pro-government). In this environment, the official opposition were pushing a very positive, future change message. So, the negative or away from forces were stacked against the government, which, allied to the very positive future change message of the opposition, saw a huge swing in the polls towards the opposition and a general assumption that a change of government was a done deal. In short, all of the change dials were turned up to maximum.

So, what’s changed? Well, lots of things but this blog is about change theory and how this applies on a grand scale. At this time, there appear to have been two major shifts – the economy is showing clear and obvious signs of recovery (reducing the ‘away from’ change forces) and the opposition appear to have lost some momentum on their positive change message. The wall of change which was about to be bulldozed form both sides now appears to be wobbling in balance.

Back in 2004 Surowieki produced his classic work ‘The Wisdom of Crowds’ in which he identified that the many are generally much smarter than the few in making tough decisions. We’re about to find out on a grand scale if the forces for change model stands up to a major piece of crowd wisdom.

My personal experience suggests that inertia gives a slight advantage to the status quo – I’ll stick my neck out and say that there will be no change of government in the 2010 UK general election. With the proviso of another downturn or as Macmillan would have said “events dear boy, events”.