Subject: [Partnerwerks TeamWisdom Tips] How To Assess A Team
Welcome to Partnerwerks TeamWisdom Tips!
by Christopher M. Avery, Ph.D.
March 4, 2003
Read by 2941 professionals in 50 countries.
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TeamWisdom(TM) Tips promotes individual mental skills and
behaviors that create highly responsible and productive
relationships at work.
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This week's line-up:
1. 10-Second TeamWisdom
2. Welcome Notes
3. HOW TO ASSESS A TEAM
4. 5-Minute TeamWisdom Stretch
5. TeamWisdom Resources
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1. 10-Second TeamWisdom
To assess a team, ask members what's working and what's not.
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2. Welcome Notes
KTEP is here! KTEP Certification Workshop is coming!
THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT. Effective immediately, Partnerwerks is
the exclusive North American distributor for the Knowledge
Team Effectiveness Profile (KTEP). KTEP offers a high-value
low-cost way to develop professional teams in these tough
economic times. Itıs also a source of expansion and income
for external consultants. I tested KTEP with clients for
four years and found it to be a valuable team assessment and
development tool, so we licensed the NA rights to it!
³Limited-Time-Offer. Act Now!²
We are bringing KTEPıs developers to the USA May 18-20, 2003
to lead a KTEP Certification Workshop for Internal and
External consultants. The cost is low, space is limited, we
expect it to fill rapidly, and donıt know when it will
happen again. Complete information and registration is at
http://www.partnerwerks.com/ktep
--
Stuck On A Bad Team? The next session of Being Powerful in
Any Team is May 13-15. Plan now to attend and bring your
team. All the details and registration is at
http://www.beingpowerful.com/
--
Our mailing list server completed it's annual dump of
bounced addresses and the subscriber count went down to
2941. That provides an opportunity to build it back up.
Please invite no more than fourteen people you know who
deserve to have more responsible and productive
relationships at work to subscribe. (-; The 3000th
subscriber will receive a free copy of my book.
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3. HOW TO ASSESS A TEAM
I finally decided to put my name and my company's name on an
instrument that claims to quantitatively measure team
effectiveness. Why? It's the first instrument that measures
what I see as happening in teams that are performing highly,
or in teams in need of development.
For years, I conducted all of my team assessments using only
qualitative -- i.e., observation and interview -- tools as
opposed to quantitative tools. I could never find a
quantitative tool I thought measured the important things in
a meaningful way. When I started using the Knowledge Team
Effectiveness Profile (KTEP,
http://www.partnerwerks.com/ktep) I would conduct both my
own qualitative assessment as well as the KTEP assessment.
Guess what? Time after time, I found the KTEP assessment
matched my own and provided number-crunched data that my
analytically-inclined clients found "interesting,"
"intriguing" and "compelling." They would really get into
the KTEP model and start to understand team dynamics that
they wouldn't ordinarily want to give the time of day.
But sometimes KTEP isn't available when I need an assessment
or my client just wants the qualitative assessment without
the quantitative measures. When that happens here's what I
do. And you can too.
First Step: Contracting. I put in place healthy conditions
for an intervention. I get clear about what the client wants
and whether I feel I can provide it. I do this both from a
viewpoint of my skills as well as my ethics. I elicit the
partnership of the team leader or sponsor who hires me so
that I'm acting as neither an "expert" nor a "pair of
hands," but rather as a full partner in solving a problem. I
get a promise from her that if I learn something for which
she could take responsibility for correcting that she wants
me to tell her. This way if I learn she's a problem (and
leadership often is), then I have her permission to talk
with her about it. I also get a promise that if she learns
of anything that will threaten the success of our project,
she will tell me. I enlist and guide her in informing the
rest of the team to expect to hear from me, that I'm not
there to "shoot" anyone nor will I do so, that I work for
the group as a team, and that they can check out my
background and reputation in a variety of ways.
Second Step: Input. I solicit input from all the team
members about how well they are doing as a team. I might do
this through face-to-face interviews, telephone interviews,
focus groups, or email questionnaire. I promise
confidentiality and also let them know I need to work with
the information they give me. I tell them that I am only
interested in compiling themes and will only report themes.
That way, if I use anything that they say, then someone else
also must have said it. Most people are quite comfortable
with that. I generally ask the same three questions and
sometimes a few more. I listen ten times more than I talk at
least, and I don't lead the witness! The three questions I
always ask are:
1. What's going well for this team? What's working?
2. What's not going well for this team? What's not work?
3. What would you like to be different?
Occasionally I'll ask a few more specific questions such as:
4. What is this team's task? What is it a team to do?
5. How are or aren't members operating as a team?
Third Step: Data Set. I make scrupulous notes. This is not
so I can later turn people in! It is so I can conduct an
accurate content analysis of my data set. This part's easy
when I use an email questionnaire.
Fourth Step: Content Analysis. I conduct a content analysis
of my data set. If it is in a text file I cut and paste
every answer to each question so that all the answers to one
question are together. Then I look for themes. A theme
starts anytime more than one person says the same thing. No
matter how interesting I find solo comments to be, I delete
them from my content analysis (but save the original
document for my later filtering). The number of themes I end
up with corresponds to the number of questions and the
number and length of interviews.
Fifth Step: Labeling. I name and describe these themes in a
report, sometimes adding quotes that illustrate the theme. I
make sure the quote does not contain context that identifies
the provider of the quote.
Sixth Step: Filtering. I review the set of themes against my
mental model for a high performing team. First, I ask if
this assessment accounts for my two conditions of a "built"
team: Direction and Energy. (If you want more about any of
these topics, see my book referenced below or do a keyword
search in the TeamWisdom Tips archives). Then I look for the
effects of my five conversations every team must have: task,
motivation, agreements, goal and honoring what each brings.
This is where I add my value to the assessment. I use my
mental model of teamwork and my own observations of the team
to report how the themes represent effectiveness or
opportunity for development.
Seventh Step: Debriefing. I didn't promise to tell you how
to debrief an assessment, only to conduct one. But, I'm this
far now. I may as well complete the job. First, I look to
see if any individuals get "exposed" in this assessment. If
so, I talk to them first privately and share the data with
them. I encourage them to make a joint decision with me
about how to treat the data. I've never encountered a person
who didn't want to go ahead share the information with the
team. I attribute that to my contracting ethics, my
promises, and my general assessment "hygiene." After that, I
may or may not reveal the results to the leader or sponsor
before giving them to the team. That mostly depends on
whether there is an exposure for the leader and how
controlling the leader wants to be. I never give members
more than one day to review the report before meeting and
talking about it as a group, and I prefer to give less time
than that. That discourages misunderstandings, worrying,
posturing and politicking. With the group I always make time
to facilitate conversations about accuracy, about meaning
for the group, and about brainstorming and agreeing to
action steps to improve the team.
Get started with this week's 5-Minute Practice Tip.
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FREE! Introduce me to meeting planners and leadership
development managers. When they invite me to send them a
marketing kit full of testimonial letters that will make you
proud, I'll send you my book ($18.95) or the print version
of The Leader's Guide ($22.95). Just direct folks to the url
below and cc us at teamwisdom@partnerwerks.com.
http://www.partnerwerks.com/services_and_products/speaking.html
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4. 5-Minute Practice Tip
Sooner or later, every professional needs to assess the
effectiveness of some team. Consider how the steps listed
above would help you make an accurate assessment.
I wish you a world of responsible and productive
relationships at work.
Faithfully,
Christopher
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"'Teamwork Is an Individual Skill: Getting Your Work Done
When Sharing Responsibility' contains more practical
information and advice about the conditions under which we
humans optimize our work together than any other book you
are likely to have read"
~Terry O'Keefe, Executive Bookshelf
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1576751554/partnerofficeont
For 35% off orders of 50+ books contact info@partnerwerks.com
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I will be traveling to and speaking...
- May 5, PMI/NJ Chapter Regional Symposium, Edison, NJ
- May 13-15, Being Powerful In Any Team, San Antonio, TX
(http://www.beingpowerful.com)
- May 18-20, Knowledge Team Effectiveness Profile (KTEP)
Certification Workshop, San Antonio, TX
http://www.partnerwerks.com/ktep
- May 22-23, 3rd. Conference on Work Teams, Centro de
Productividad, Monterrey, N.L., Mexico
Want me to speak at your company or association? See
http://www.partnerwerks.com/services_and_products/speaking.html
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5. TeamWisdom Resources
Being Powerful in Any Team, May 13-15, 2003
I won't waste your time...I guarantee it. This high impact
learning event contains the most important information and
skills I know for getting thing done with others.
http://www.beingpowerful.com
Knowledge Team Effectiveness Profile (KTEP)
Team development budget too tight for seminars? Check out
KTEP to quantitatively measure your team's effectiveness and
show areas for high-impact improvement. Based on years of
research and testing, KTEP is now available in North
America. Team assessments can be performed for about
$125/person - super affordable!
http://www.partnerwerks.com/ktep
KTEP Certification Workshop, May 18-20, 2003
The cost is low, space is limited, we expect it to fill
rapidly, and donıt know when it will happen again.
http://www.partnerwerks.com/ktep
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Copyright 1998-2003, all rights reserved. TeamWisdom,
TeamWisdom Tips, Being Powerful In Any Team, and
Partnerwerks are trademarks of Partnerwerks, Inc. Please
contact us for permission to republish TeamWisdom Tips.
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