Putting The "I"
Back In TEAM
Will Change
Your Organization!

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What if diversity was seen as the superpower of your great team?

Diversity is the hallmark of great TEAMS – moreover, inclusion and honoring of differences represent fundamental principles of the Leading to TEAM process. Diversity Done Differently benefits EVERYONE! Great TEAMS are naturally inclusive and thrive from diversity.
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Developing Leaders at
EVERY Level

Leadership isn’t a title, it is a way of thinking. Leading to TEAM is for managers, but it is also great for staff. We want everyone taking ownership for their work and for the success of the TEAM.
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Participants emerge from our trainings with a renewed vision of TEAM as well as a new set of functional skills and practices to support them in creating what everyone wants a little more of in their life....TEAM.

Most Organizations Could Use A Culture “Reset”

When a group of people come together (or are put together) they will automatically co-create a culture, beyond the mission of the organization and the roles that people play within that organization. While this culture is vital, it is rarely cultivated consciously and deliberately. Building a Culture of TEAM is a powerful opportunity to establish TEAM as a core value of your organization.

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Being More Mission Driven

Being socially responsible is just good business. Moreover, phony attempts to “Green Wash” or “Virtue Signal” can do significant damage to a brand. We recommend becoming more MISSION DRIVEN in your company culture and aligning with causes that reflect the values of your brand. Becoming More Mission Driven is literally about sustainability – it is the sustainability of our planet, but it is also the relevance of your band in the marketplace.

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Our training is remarkably quick and effective. Companies spend vast sums of money on consultants measuring employee engagement and trying to improve company culture. This program can have a major impact in just a single session.

More Core Programs

Tapping into Flow (Process Improvement)

Authentic Service (Customer Service)

Leading Hybird and Remote Teams

Becoming More Mission Driven

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Special Topic Trainings

Making Meetings Matter

Better Brainstorming

The Power of Effective Feedback

Conversations for Action

Keys to Confident Speaking

Self-Awareness - A Leadership Practice

The Power of Debriefing

Understanding the Enneagram

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Group To Team

When individuals operate from the mindset of “group,” their choices organize around “self-interest.”  When individuals operate from the mindset of “team”, they organize their choices around a “shared interest.”  Group is the default when people come together, while TEAM is a process of developing trust and rapport. 

In this workshop/presentation participants will experience the co-creative nature of team, inviting individuals to participate in the process of developing a team orientation within their department and the larger organization.  This program inspires individuals to take personal responsibility for generating TEAM.

We have worked successfully integrating From Group to TEAM into organizations large and small. From the US Air Force training command to Cal Poly Pomona Foundation. This program shifts mindsets and provides a new language that will support individuals in creating the experience of TEAM.

DEIB Done Differently

This co-facilitated training is led by a mixed race and mixed gender training team to make the material as tangible, relatable and accessible as possible to a broad range of employees. Our experience demonstrates that “modeling” is a significant learning tool when dealing with difficult topics such as bias and inequity. It can be delivered in a variety of formats, but works most effectively when delivered in person over a full day, with several “integration” follow up sessions.

TEAM is naturally inclusive and thrives off diversity. The foundation of TEAM is common cause. When people organize around a common cause, they tend to be willing to address anything that is not in alignment with their collective sense of purpose. Developing and maintaining a culture of TEAM, where diversity and inclusion are inherent values, is the ideal context to explore individual bias along with systemic issues related to bias, such as racism, sexism and homophobia.

Group on the other hand is not inclusive. People operate in group when they are acting out of self- interest and/or self-protection. Group is normal, but it is not optimal. The bonding pattern when people are stuck in group, by its nature, excludes. For example, micro-groups or cliques are a natural byproduct of group. The disconnection and discomfort caused by bias and micro-aggressions drive people into micro-groups. Helping people become more socially sensitive and making people aware of group patterning is part of shifting toward a culture of TEAM.

Diversity is great for decision making. Social scientists have performed countless studies and the data derived from these studies points to diversity as a driver of good decision making, increased innovation, resiliency and numerous other benefits. Companies want diversity – but just hiring more minorities or women does not inherently generate an optimal culture. Professional development around bias, in the context of generating a culture of TEAM, is a fantastic investment for any organization.

Leadership (Leading To Team)

Leadership looks different in the 21st Century (the “collaborative age”) than it ever has before.  To stay relevant in this dynamic and ever-changing world, leadership can no longer be about telling people what to do. Leadership, today, is about orchestrating a confluence of talent, engagement and collaboration. It is about inviting and enrolling people to contribute their energy and efforts to support a common cause.  Leaders must empower their people and include them in decision making, or the best ideas, methods and strategies will be missed.

At one time, when the speed of change was much slower and there was simply less information available, a leader could get away with being an expert who directed people in performing tasks in a static system.  Today, being the expert means that you are most often operating under “best practices” from the past rather than adapting to the “next practices” that are emerging.

Leaders can (and should) still have expertise and experience, which they contribute to the dynamic process of collaboration.  However, leadership today is far more akin to conducting an orchestra.  It is critical to utilize a range of talent, skills and experience to draw out the best solutions and adapt to the ever-changing landscape of business and culture in the 21st Century.

Building A Culture Of Team

When a group of people come together (or are put together) they will automatically co-create a culture, beyond the mission of the organization and the roles that people play within that organization.  While this culture is vital, it is rarely cultivated consciously and deliberately. 

Most organizations rely on a magnanimous personality, generally the founder or CEO of the organization, to set the “context” for company culture.  The organizational leadership expects senior managers to control the culture of their divisions or departments.  What most organizations fail to recognize is that culture is set by the patterns, behaviors and personalities of a vast array of people within the organization – many of whom have no identified leadership role.

Most organizations could use a culture “reset”.  This remarkable program draws out the qualities in the environment that people WANT to co-create, measured against the qualities in the environment that people have co-created.  Interactive processes between team members help define a powerful, energetic, “context” that all of the team members WANT to co-create.  From this point forward, behavior, attitudes and actions are either in alignment with what people say they want, or not.  Team members are given a clear process to gage when they are acting “in alignment” with the shared context, along with a process to get back on track when they “go off course”.

BEING MISSION DRIVEN (The best way to survive and thrive in business today!)

This program can be introduced as a power keynote address or conference breakout. The program can be trained as a full-day training and/or multi-day program. Most importantly, it is an excellent initiative that can combine and incorporate other Leading to TEAM programs and principles to develop an optimal culture.

The best way to attain and retain top young talent is to appeal to their values. Young people want companies to be socially responsible. Incorporating corporate social responsibility into your business is the best ways to attract Gen Z team members. Being more mission driven is the best way to motivate and retain the top talent that you attract. This generation holds the keys to your long-term success. Right now, they have $29 billion in purchase power and more than $333 billion in influence. However, their power will only increase as the younger members of the generation grow up. Considering stakeholders, beyond just the interest of shareholders, tends to lead to better decision making. Every company should be considering the principles of Conscious Capitalism and the triple bottom line: people, profit and the planet.

More Core Programs

TAPPING INTO FLOW (PROCESS IMPROVEMENT)

Format: This program is a great keynote address or conference breakout.  The program is also trained as a full-day training and/or in conjunction with one of our other powerful programs.

Flow is an optimal state of consciousness where we feel our best and perform our best, both individually and collectively.  The nature of TEAM, itself, can be categorized as a state of flow, where a TEAM of individuals function as more than the sum of the parts. From our perspective, when people are coordinating efforts, collaborating and cooperating, in service to a shared goal or common cause, they have likely achieved their optimal operating dynamics.

TEAM loves to win. TEAM thrives on the momentum that comes with winning – specifically overcoming challenges. We use a system of goal setting that leads to consistent “wins”, which fuels TEAM.  The system starts with Small Clear Goals, coupled with consistent assessment and feedback, utilizing a growth and learning principle called, “Skills-Challenge Balance”. NOTE: the system we use is the same system utilized by professional sports organizations, Olympic trainers and athletes, as well as the Navy Seals.

Small Clear Goals is the key to our process.  When one is faced with a big goal, the enormity is generally the barrier to accomplishing it.  When one sets small clear goals and achieves them rapidly, we find that we can achieve bigger goals simply by breaking them up.  The key to utilizing the goal/accomplishment system is having a process of consistent assessment and feedback. The best type of feedback, for this process is hard data, but soft data works as well. The third piece of this model is called the “Skills/Challenge Balance.” Here is a quick explanation of this principle:  If someone is presented with a challenge that is too hard for them, they usually won’t even attempt it.   Conversely, if a person’s skills are clearly superior to the challenge they will generally put in less effort and the experience will be less fulfilling, leading to less-than-optimal performance. The way to achieve flow is to present challenges that stretch a person’s skill set by about 5%. When TEAM is installed as the organizational operating system, this process of stretching and growing is a foundational piece of talent management and operations.

AUTHENTIC SERVICE(CUSTOMER SERVICE)

Format: This program is a power keynote address or conference breakout.  The program is also trained as a full-day training and/or in conjunction with one of our other powerful programs.  This program is most commonly delivered with our Building a Culture of TEAM program.

There are two fundamental questions that change the conversation about service:

1. Who’s on our customer service team?
The answer needs to be “EVERYONE” – from the CEO, “up”.  Yes, “up” – in the service orientation everyone is supporting those who are “customer facing” – because the customer is the most important person “in” the organization – the customer is the reason the organization exists. Thus, EVERYONE is on the customer service team, not simply those who may be answering the phones or helping customers choose the right product or service.

2. Who do you serve?
In an organization that has a service orientation it is important to know who you serve, and how you are serving them.  In reorienting toward serving the customer those who do not directly serve the customer become clear on serving those that serve the customer directly.

“Being responsible for more than you are accountable for” – in a service orientated organization every member of the organization has a direct accountability.  People generally refer to one’s accountability as their “job”.  We make a distinction between responsibility and accountability.  The accountability equates to the direct tasks and areas that one is expected to perform.  Responsibility is a choice to be personally vested in a larger mission and/or purpose.  Even though a team member is not “customer facing”, and may never have direct contact with that customer, they are still responsible for that customer’s experience.

LEADING HYBRID AND REMOTE TEAMS

Format: This program is a power keynote address or conference breakout. It works exceptionally well as a learning module that is coupled with one of our other training programs. This is also a great inquiry topic, where our highly interactive programs for crowd-sourcing solutions works extremely well.

Virtual Leadership sounds like the punchline to a joke – but it is NOT something to scoff at post COVID Lockdown. Long before people evacuated their offices during the pandemic, a revolution was sprouting. Many knowledge workers can do most, if not all, of their work remotely. The question is how to best manage and lead remote teams. What if your team is only partially remote or what if you want to institute a hybrid work culture, where people come into the office intermittingly? There are more questions than answers. Best practices are emerging.

At Leading to TEAM, we have been considering this issue for some time now. We have led major organizations in an inquiry process to draw out and establish customized models to fit their unique needs. Great teams are flexible and resilient – drawing on the collective intelligence of the team members to source solutions that work. We are having great success with our clients in adapting to hybrid and remote work environments.

BEING MISSION DRIVEN (The best way to survive and thrive in business today!)

Format: This program is a power keynote address or conference breakout.  The program is also trained as a full-day training and/or multi-day program.  It is an excellent initiative that can combine and incorporate other Leading to TEAM programs and principles.

The best way to attain and retain top young talent is to appeal to their values. Young people want companies to be socially responsible. Incorporating corporate social responsibility into your business is the best ways to attract Gen Z team members. Being more mission driven is the best way to motivate and retain the top talent that you attract. This generation hold the keys to your long-term success. Right now, they have $29 billion in purchase power and more than $333 billion in influence. However, their power will only increase as the younger members of the generation grow up. Considering stakeholders, beyond just the interest of shareholders, tends to lead to better decision making. Every company should be considering the principles of Conscious Capitalism and the triple bottom line: people, profit and the planet.

SPECIAL TOPIC TRAINING

We offer “special topic training”. These keynote and breakout sessions (usually 45-90 minutes) are great for conferences and events. They also work great as “short-format” training between programs to keep employees engaged in the basic Leading to TEAM principles, while developing additional skills.
The following are a list of special topic trainings with brief descriptions of the programs:

Making Meetings Matter: This program offers a powerful process to define the purpose of meetings (even if the purpose is intentionally vague).  The “check in” and “check out” process, taught in this breakout, immediately upgrades the level of engagement of participants.

Better Brainstorming: Most brainstorming is ineffective in eliciting the best ideas.  This unique process draws out the best ideas, often from unlikely sources, every time.

The Power of Effective Feedback: This module is about giving and receiving feedback as the core communication tool to support effective teams.

Conversations for Action – Having Committed Conversations: This short program can have a profound effect on team performance.  When team members shift from uncommitted to committed conversations, team effectiveness increases dramatically.  This powerful program can have a profound, immediate, effect on an organization.

Keys to Confident Speaking: With decades of speaking and presentation experience under their belts, our team members deliver an excellent program in public speaking.  In a short period of time, we offer powerful tips and techniques to instantly improve presentation skills.

Self-Awareness – A Leadership Practice: When mistakes keep happening within an organization it is a clear indication of a lack of self-awareness.  Collective intelligence requires a certain level of self-awareness, along with social sensitivity.  This quick program outlines the steps to end repeating patterns and upgrade the “operating system” within teams.

The Power of Debriefing: High performance requires rigorous assessment and evaluation.  Most organizations don’t effectively debrief situations to establish not only best practices but next practices. The marketplace is changing rapidly, teams must be able to constantly assess all variables related to performance and regularly make adjustments to innovate and expand the way they do business. This program teaches a powerful debriefing tool, which can have an immediate impact and improve the performance of a team.

Understanding the Enneagram: The Enneagram is a powerful tool for understanding patterns that are produced by one’s adaptive personality. Leaders who want to take the next step in both their personal and professional development can join one of our powerful Enneagram Groups. This is truly where “next level leadership” is fostered and nourished.