New Team Kickoff Facilitation

A new team deserves an orientation. New hires have orientations, new students have orientations, new doctors, teachers and senators have orientations. New teams need that quality coaching time too.

A new team may be convened due to a new product or project, a reorganization, or growth due to hiring a number of people around the same time to form a new group.

Why facilitate a new team?

New teams have an outcome responsibility. They are creating a new process or product. Development of the new team agenda includes input from their leaders, to be clear about what result is desired.

Team members function better when they are coached through taking the time to get to know each other, so activities allowing for connection becomes one element of a new team kick-off. It is much more likely for team members to be patient and compassionate with each other when they have come to know a person’s humanity, what matters to them, what they hope to contribute. Once you know the challenges they have overcome in their career or their life, the path they have taken to arrive at this team, it’s inevitable that connections are forged. Through this team coaching process, similarities are found, or respect is generated for different mountains climbed.

What are the benefits of a team kick-off meeting?

Those relationship connections provide latitude later, when there are misunderstandings or competing commitments. Team members are more willing to listen, to be empathic, to make a trade-off or accommodation in a pinch. Respect and trust are the lubricant of relationships, or as author Anne Lamott says even more poetically: grace is the WD-40 of life.

In addition to some get-to-know you activities, a team coaching kick off takes into account the different learning styles, energy styles and functional roles that members play. So learning about each other isn’t only about histories and job responsibilities, it’s also about preferred styles of working and being motivated. This provides process competence to team members: knowing how to work well together.

This can have a lasting impact on the effectiveness of future communications.

Why establish team norms?

A segment of the team kick-off includes being coached to establish group norms or guidelines: what do we agree to? Do we agree to stay on track or do we allow the potential benefits of tangents? Do we show up on time, or realize that we’re all overextended and late arrivals are the norm? Do we use a talking stick to ensure only one person speaks at a time, or invite interruptions and over-talking? Are cell phones surrendered, or do we know that emails need to be checked every 10 minutes?

The team coach helps the group identify these norms and guidelines at the beginning. Taking the time for this discussion illustrates and sets the tone for self-management and group membership. It sets the tone for agency: they are in charge of themselves. People are much more likely to comply with guidelines they have been part of establishing. And it optimizes the meetings that follow, because they know what to expect.

Is Active listening necessary?

In our fast-paced environment, with data overload and long to-do lists, active listening can be forgotten. A team coach helps a team remember the benefits of Active listening, and then facilitates activities that deepen awareness of habits that can foster active listening. All of us benefit from a reminder of how to listen attentively.

How do you pace the day?

A facilitator creates an agenda in support of the outcomes, designed to keep team members engaged. That means planning for and modifying the sequence of events and discussions, coaching the team towards its outcomes.

In addition to establishing outcomes and results, team norms, and reviewing active listening, a short fun video related to the new team’s agenda or topic is engaging. Many people, 60 – 80% by some research, learn visually, and humor appeals to all of us.

What about your book: Zoom Leadership: Change Your Focus Change Your Insights

The Zoom Leadership decision model provides for expanding brainstorming options through zooming in and out through four lenses. These include Think, for analytic and logical evaluation, Act, for taking small or big next steps, Feel for engaging the emotional intelligence and empathic qualities, and Witness to engage that inner observer.

The Zoom Leadership decision making technique can facilitate broadening the options through using this approach. It can later be used to assess a recommendation to narrow down to a decision, using those lenses up close or strategically.

What other facilitation formats do you use?

Facilitating an Appreciative Inquiry conversation as part of a team kick off produces a lot of energy. A newly formed team brings their individual history, and many times company history as well. Facilitated conversations about good outcomes and results are engaging and energizing. Appreciative Inquiry takes an approach that encourages a narrative about past company successes. People generally enjoy engaging in recalling successes. It not only lowers the apprehension and anxiety, it provides a firm foundation on which to build new skills.

The Myers-Briggs personality profile indicator helps team members appreciate and benefit from different personality preferences and ways of thinking. I particularly encourage team members to highlight when they have seen strengths in their team mates, using Myers-Briggs. This style preference coaching makes the theoretical model real, and helps them appreciate each other and their differences.

Similarly strengths-based discussions lower the guardedness. I often will find a way to incorporate career highlighters or company highlights or both. What makes you proud? What have you done that is memorable? It’s a good place to start. This can be anecdotal or can use an on-line tool.

Also see Gestalt and Graphic Facilitation.