Strategy Survival Guide
Strategy Survival Guide
Strategy Survival Guide
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• Commitment to a common purpose and goals. A common, meaningful purpose sets the tone and<br />
aspirations of the team<br />
• Agreement on working methods and expected contributions from individual team members<br />
• A non-hierarchical way of working<br />
• Emphasis on job satisfaction and a friendly atmosphere<br />
• Critical friends outside the team to give objective insights<br />
• Sufficient flexibility in working methods and approach to accommodate different working styles<br />
• Good communication and openness, where questions, ideas and opposing views on issues are<br />
encouraged.<br />
Team-building events<br />
A team building event gives everyone the opportunity to engage with the vision for the project, to think about<br />
how they will work together and to understand that everyone has different abilities that they bring to the<br />
project. There are many different tools in organisational development used to help people understand their<br />
differences. These include Belbin’s team roles, Honey and Mumford’s learning styles and Myers Briggs. All<br />
instruments give an insight into how it takes all kinds of people to make up a team. Your choice of instrument<br />
will depend on personal preference and training (e.g. formal accreditation is required for using Myers Briggs).<br />
It may be helpful to use specific team-building exercises at team away-days and other team building<br />
sessions. These can assist learning about team working and project management. They can include, for<br />
example, survival, building and manufacturing exercises. Such exercises can be purchased from firms such<br />
as Management Learning Resources and Verax.<br />
Strengths<br />
• Very important to the success of the team, particularly when team members have not worked<br />
together before or have not worked on project teams before.<br />
• Useful to bring together team members working on differing work-streams, to help them see the big<br />
picture.<br />
• Can be formal or informal, ranging from professional techniques such as Myers-Briggs to team social<br />
events.<br />
Weaknesses<br />
• Often conducted early on in the project life-cycle but can be neglected as the project progresses and<br />
team members are engrossed in detailed analytical work.<br />
• Use of techniques such as Myers-Briggs and professionally developed team games can be<br />
expensive.<br />
References<br />
Management Learning Resources Ltd, PO Box 28, Carmarthen, Wales, SA31 IDT, phone 01267 281 661,<br />
email: sales@mlr.co.uk<br />
www.verax.co.uk, phone: 01252 849300 email: info@verax.co.uk<br />
Building a team<br />
In Practice: SU Energy Review<br />
The Myers-Briggs technique was used by the team at its initial away-day. The session was run by the<br />
SU's HR Adviser who is trained in conducting the test.<br />
All team members were requested to fill out the text prior to the away-day, and the results were<br />
collected and collated for presentation on the day. The results were quite surprising, and gave<br />
significant insight into the different personality traits within the team. The facilitator was able to give<br />
suggestions as to how team members might interact, how to deal with potential problems and when<br />
particular traits would work well together.<br />
<strong>Strategy</strong> <strong>Survival</strong> <strong>Guide</strong> – <strong>Strategy</strong> Skills<br />
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