WORKSHOPS » Team Dynamics

Our Team Dynamics workshops help clients build the ultimate team and team players.

When you ask people the last time was that they were on a high-performing team, the average answer is 5.9 years ago. That's 5.9 years too long.

A University of Connecticut survey of 2,435 employees in 400 organizations asked people to reveal the most important factor for getting ahead in the workplace.

Being a team player ranked higher than all factors, including merit and performance, leadership skills, intelligence, making money for the organization and working long hours.

When we work with teams from companies like Disney, Hilton, State Farm, Cox, Halliburton and Microsoft, they are 48.9% more effective once they've been through our training and measured their performance.

We begin with a powerful team survey to assess a team's culture and performance. Based on the results of the survey, we teach those teams how to:

1. cut down on wasted meeting time and work together effectively because personal and territorial agendas are history.
2. reduce turnover because the team values and accesses diversity of thought during collaboration processes that keep people's talents engaged and daily innovation alive.
3. ask better business questions and rigorously test their assumptions, creating stronger ideas and fewer wasted projects.
4. get more strategic work done, spend less energy chasing pet projects, and accept less excuses about why things don't change.
5. break down barriers that block candor in meetings and one-on-one discussions and performance reviews.
6. uncover what they could do better, and are dedicated to constant improvement.
7. get people on the same page and operating from the same leadership philosophy.

research and objectives

Those results are driven by a decade of client work and research by Marcum and Smith in their highly acclaimed, bestselling books. Our work has received the acclaim of Stephen Covey, Tom Peters, Amy Edmondson, Marshall Goldsmith, Christine Pearson, and Warren Bennis among others.

Their latest book from Simon & Schuster, egonomics was sparked by Jim Collins' landmark work in Good to Great. Collins carefully researched 1,435 companies and discovered only 11 who broke the gravity of "good" performance to reach great. Those 11 companies surpassed their competitors by an average of 688% over 15 years. In each case, those good-to-great companies had leaders with two, rare characteristics: 1) fierce personal resolve/ego drive, 2) extreme personal humility. He called that combination "Level 5 Leadership."

Even with equal ambition, talent and resources, companies without "Level 5" characteristics couldn't make the cut. We wanted to answer the question; "Can you learn to become a 'Level 5' leader who then transforms a team, a project, or even a company from good to great?" We now have answers to that question.

Our Team Dynamics training focuses on three clear cut, uncommon principles that change the way teams listen, speak, think and decide.

1. open minds
   
   
   • People aren't too content, or overconfident, in what they've achieved.
   • Anxiously listen to new ideas even though they hold strong opinions themselves.
   • Don't take things personally in intense debates so the best ideas win.
   • People are we-centered more than me-centered in the way they think about the business.
   • Drive and embrace change.
   
   
   
2. intense curiosity
   
   
   • Raise the level of insightful questions asked in routine conversations and meetings.
   • Hungry to learn; don't let expertise, title or tenure limit questions about new ideas or ventures.
   • Unlock conversations to get to the heart of the matter.
   • Balance pure creativity with business discipline and homework.
   • Test the assumptions behind what we do and why we're doing it.
   
   
   
3. water-cooler honesty
   
   
   • People speak their minds without fear of backlash, being labeled, or seen as incompetent.
   • Hear, and give, honest feedback so improvement is possible.
   • When people do speak up, they do it tactfully, not in a way that shuts other people down.
   • People confront the brutal facts and do something about it.

what's so different about MarcumSmith?

The answer is partly in what we teach, and partly in how we do it. Based on cross-disciplinary research, we provide insightful ideas and relevant, practical tools that people need to improve the way a team, at any level, works together.

One of the unique things about our work is that we talk about ego (yes, ego), and how it affects dynamics for good and bad. We don't talk about ego in the "Freudian," or deeply psychological sense, but in the practical way our individual confidence affects our talent and ability to contribute and perform. Our teaching of "egonomics" is central to what we teach.

We also teach business humility, and how humility separates great leaders and team players from everyone else. But based on our work and research, we have a very different definition and application of humility than most people.

Additionally, we don't just teach people how to make communication "safe," but how to create intense, productive debate while keeping that debate objective and constructive. That alone helps tap into the diversity of team players rather than just claiming we have "difference." We believe there's a big difference between continuing a conversation, and advancing one.

Last but not least, we teach a concept called "water-cooler honesty." Unless people candidly and diplomatically share what's on their mind, then strategies are bound to mediocrity and vision is destined to veer off track. People shouldn't need to retreat to the water cooler to share what's really on their mind, especially when it's bad news or difficult to say.

In terms of how we teach, we are down-to-earth. At MarcumSmith, we are businesspeople who teach team dynamics and leadership, not instructional designers or motivational speakers who try and relate to business. We love research and evidence about what works, not just nice-sounding theory for theory's sake. Ironically, were not big fans of most training and so we work hard to make sure ours makes a difference in the real world, not just on a PowerPoint slide or in "Seminarland."

Relevance and performance is what counts, and our content is designed exclusively to that end. We also like to have fun...we believe the business world takes itself a little too seriously sometimes.

learn more: price, competencies, etc.

To learn more about our workshops you can review endorsements from our clients, read about our prices and offerings, and learn about the core competencies people acquire from attending our workshops.

If you would like to know more about how we can help your team break the gravity of good to get great results, please click on the contact page for more information. If you'd like to see a high-level workshop outline, click here. You can also review case-studies of the client work we've done and the measured results that were delivered.