Chapter Nine: Overview of Selected Team Level OD Interventions

Contents

9.1 Team Level OD Interventions
9.2 A Note on Team Building
9.3 Team Start-up Meetings
9.4 Team Transition Meetings
9.5 Role Negotiation
9.6 Confrontation Meetings
Questions for Reflection & Summary

9.1 Team-Level OD Interventions

Team-level interventions address issues happening within a team or between teams. These interventions focus on helping teams establish healthy dynamics and become more effective. They can be implemented when a team is experiencing internal situations impacting their work or when there is conflict happening between teams that need to work together. Often, team-level interventions are generically called team-building, which can be problematic because of negative connotations associated with this label and some practices that, although frequently applied, do not follow evidence-based approaches.

Effective team-level OD interventions are based on behavioral science, have defined goals and structure, and are facilitated by professionals with adequate OD knowledge and skills. These interventions focus on key elements of team dynamics, including team goals, processes, norms and expectations, configuration, and roles and responsibilities. Skilled OD practitioners combine and adapt these interventions to tackle the specific organizational needs and context in which they occur. However, in general, these interventions are based on well-known practices described in the subsequent sessions. Additionally, some individual-level interventions can also be implemented to support team dynamics, for example, team coaching, 360 feedback focusing on teamwork, and some team assessments.

9.2 A Note on Team Building

Team building is a term that is often used in a generic way to define activities aimed at helping teams work more effectively. It might refer to some structured interventions, as the ones described in this chapter, but it also often refers to informal activities that may include activities such as cooking together, games, practicing an outdoor sport, or happy hours. Although these can be excellent opportunities to build community and get to know one another on a more personal level, they often fail to improve team dynamics and usually overlook critical issues affecting team performance and their underlying causes. In some situations, employees may feel that these activities are put in place to avoid discussing the real problems, and a sense of cynicism may arise^[1].

Additionally, some activities are not necessarily inclusive and accessible, which may cause uncomfortable situations and a lack of attention to individual circumstances. For example, inviting the team for a happy hour as part of a team building activity when someone in the team is facing difficulties with addiction, or proposing a team sport that is inaccessible for an employee with a physical disability, or an activity that may cause a neurodivergent individual to feel sensory overwhelmed, or yet, requesting the team to travel for a team building weekend when an employee is caring for a severely ill family member.

Therefore, while some activities aimed at strengthening social connections can contribute to better relationships within a team and have a positive impact on their teamwork, they should be planned with care and complemented with structured activities that promote open dialogue and focus on understanding and solving issues that are preventing effective teamwork. Effective team building or team development activities must have clear expected outcomes and be linked with the organizational context and the team’s goals^[2]. In the next sections, we discuss some OD interventions that can foster effectiveness within and among teams.

9.3 Team Start-up Meetings

As the name suggests, the Team Start-up Meeting is a structured and intentional intervention that happens at the beginning of a team formation (Start-up). The objective of this intervention is to create alignment between team members about the team’s objectives and define norms and expectations around ways of working and interacting. A team agreement (or team charter) is a tool that can support these meetings, serving as a discussion guide and a document that records the agreement, ensuring transparency and accountability.

In a Team Start-up Meeting, the team leader often shares their vision and expectations for the team. In self-directed teams, when there is no formal leader and leadership is shared between team members, defining team vision and expectations should be part of the meeting agenda. The team agreement resulting from these interventions should be clear and direct, providing concrete guidelines for team members.

9.4 Team Transition Meetings

The Transition Meetings can be conducted when an established team is going through changes, such as a new team configuration (members leaving the team and or new members joining), a change in leadership, a new goal, or a new project. They can also be conducted as a maintenance tool to support effective teamwork or if the team dynamics start to show signs of ineffectiveness. Transition Meetings are a good strategy to realign team goals and norms, clarify or negotiate new roles and responsibilities, align expectations, and resolve disagreements and misunderstandings.

The team agreement can be discussed and revised in Transition Meetings. Usually, the team will have a discussion about what is working and what is not, and then revise their team’s agreement with updated norms, expectations, and ways of working. Some structured activities, such as “Start Doing, Stop Doing, and Continue Doing” exercises, can be helpful to understand what needs to be updated in the revised team agreement. The video below offers an overview of a Start, Stop, Continue activity.

9.5 Role Negotiation

Role negotiation (also called role analysis) is a team-level intervention that aims to promote dialogue between members of a team where they discuss the necessary tasks of a team and negotiate how to distribute these tasks among the team members. At the end of this role negotiation meeting, team members should have a clear description of their responsibilities and a shared understanding of how each one contributes to the work of the team. In general, a role negotiation meeting involves:

• Each team member describes their current responsibilities, sharing what they need to accomplish, the activities they take to accomplish that, and the expected timeline for completing those tasks.
• Next, all members read each other’s responsibilities and clarify any points that are unclear.
• Members reflect and provide suggestions to each other on what could be improved to make the team work more effectively.
• Suggestions are discussed, negotiated, and incorporated into the role descriptions.

Although Role Negotiation can be very effective in clarifying roles, resolving disagreements, overlaps, and disputes, and creating alignment among team members, it can be challenging to implement. An effective Role Negotiation meeting requires openness to express ideas and disagreements. A skilled facilitator can help conduct effective meetings, and after participating in some role-negotiation exercises, team members likely increase their comfort level with these discussions.

Responsibility Charting is a visual tool that can be used as a supporting mechanism for both Start-up and Transition Meetings and for Role Negotiation exercises. Once roles are clear among team members, the Responsibility Chart helps to visualize and refine responsibilities and decision-making processes in a team and between teams. It consists of a table that lists the main activities a team or teams have to accomplish and the main role of each team member regarding each task. Frequently, the types of possible roles are pre-defined, for example:

• Responsible – ensures the activity is completed.
• Supporter – supports the activity with time, knowledge, or other resources.
• Approver – can approve or veto actions related to this activity.
• Consulted – needs to be involved or consulted about the activity.
• Informed – need to be informed about the status of the activity.

For example, let’s consider the Responsibility Chart for a Recruiting activity:

9.6 Confrontation Meetings

This team-level OD approach can be applied to help improve relationships and enhance the performance of a team or intra-team within an organization. It was first developed by Richard Beckhard in 1967, but OD practitioners still use its guidelines and format in many OD interventions. The goal of a Confrontation Meeting is to facilitate a dialogue among individuals from different areas and levels in an organization to problem-solve and plan actions to address issues that involve and impact all of them. It is an effective way to confront an organizational or team issue and come up with potential solutions.

Usually, a Confrontation Meeting can be conducted in a 4-5 hour period and includes the following activities:

• A leader shares the goals and purpose of the meeting and sets the tone for an open and constructive discussion
• Small, diverse groups are formed to identify obstacles and opportunities for improvement related to the problem being discussed. Some examples of questions discussed in these small groups are: What factors contribute to this problem? What could make this situation better? What could be done to make the team or organization more effective?
• The groups reconvene and present their conclusions, and a facilitator consolidates the information generated.
• New small groups are formed (usually by function or area) and discuss what should be prioritized from the actions proposed and how that specific group could contribute.
• The groups reconvene again and share their priorities and proposals.
• Next, a leadership team meets to discuss the outcomes of the large group discussion. They define priorities and select the proposed actions that they will support. Finally, they report back to all participants and establish a process for monitoring the progress of the prioritized action plan.

Confrontation meetings can be excellent interventions to tackle urgent issues that require the involvement and commitment of different stakeholders. If well conducted, they can offer opportunities to create alignment about the situation, facilitate the definition of priorities and decision-making, increase engagement and commitment to action, and improve communication and collaboration between teams and departments.

Table 2. Benefits and points of attention of team-level OD interventions.

Summary

Team-level OD interventions aim to enhance the effectiveness of teams. These interventions are often referred to as team-building, but this label can be problematic due to the negative connotations associated with it and the common practices that may not follow evidence-based approaches. Effective team-level OD interventions are grounded in behavioral science, have clearly defined goals and structures, and are facilitated by professionals who possess adequate knowledge and skills in OD. These interventions focus on critical elements of team dynamics, including team goals, processes, norms and expectations, configuration, and roles and responsibilities.