Strategy Survival Guide

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