DTF’s vision is to achieve “a prosperous future for all Victorians” by modeling the values and behaviors published in the DTF Aspiration Statement (see Exhibit 12.1). To achieve this vision, divisions within DTF are empowered to act independently to address their needs and use support from a team of internal organizational development (OD) consultants.

The presence of three or four generations in the workforce with differing values and goals is forcing managers to think about the most effective approaches to getting the work done. Better technology has facilitated flexible working arrangements and the ability for employees to work from home. Collaborative leadership teams are required to help DTF cope with skill shortages and support each other to manage in an increasingly diverse and complex working environment.

In the 2006 state election, the government made a commitment to deliver more innovative and efficient services, reduce the regulatory burden, and continue implementing its reform agenda. The senior executive group of DTF identified increased integration of its divisions as a cultural priority to ensure it delivers on these commitments.

Integrated work practices result in collective work products and mutual accountability. Independence and individually produced outcomes are still valued, but only to the extent that they do not contradict or constrain corporate goals and team output. Integration requires “teamwork” and is important in driving excellence in process and outcomes.

Another challenge is the characteristics of the people at DTF, who can be described as predominantly left-brain thinkers who are likely to be analytical, risk averse, and linear. Team and leadership development do not come easily to a highly technical workforce.

Historically, DTF has not developed senior leaders in team or leadership capability; leaders have been rewarded and valued on the basis of technical expertise rather than teamwork and leadership skills. Hence, building team and leadership capability were not a priority for leaders in DTF.

These challenges have clear and important implications for DTF’s team and leadership development practices and raise key questions:

These questions signaled the need to implement an executive team development (ETD) program. Focusing on team development in a leadership team was seen as the best method to confront the challenges and produce a positive culture change, for two reasons. First, behavioral change occurs more readily in a team context. Because of their collective support, teams are not as threatened by change. They also offer more room for growth and change for individual leaders and can energize and focus the efforts of the leadership team to confront these challenges. The same team dynamics that promote performance also support learning and behavioral change and will do so more effectively than when individuals are left to their own devices.

Second, leadership is the single biggest influencer of the culture of an organization and therefore a pivotal force for bringing about change. The majority of executives in the DTF are leading teams, and their values, preferences, and behaviors have a direct impact on how staff are expected to behave individually and in teams. If executive team performance can be improved, then their way of working will have a cascading effect throughout the DTF.

The study presented in this chapter tells the story of an executive team development program implemented by one of the internal organizational development consultants. This program was conducted over twelve months and focused on building team leadership and executive team capability.

Staff focus tended to be on the internal unfolding daily dramas or on competition between business output teams, not on working together or identifying new opportunities for DTF. These observations signaled to the head of the division that a better understanding of teamwork was a prerequisite for achieving collaboration between executive team members and would create a more integrated division.

The program used the principles of action and double-loop learning to develop and reinforce the characteristics of an effective leadership team. An action research approach is a classic organization development choice in which participants learn by doing. Participants worked on team-based projects aimed at building leadership team capability while delivering on the business outcomes. Double-loop learning occurs when participants question and modify the values, assumptions, and norms that led to the actions in the first place. An overview of the program is presented in Figure 12.1.

The reliability and face validity of the survey was established using a small pilot group and expert stakeholders within DTF.

Two questionnaires were used: the team leader questionnaire and the executive team questionnaire. All executive team members completed the executive team questionnaire and self-assessed their own performance as a team leader by completing the team leader questionnaire. The team leader questionnaire was distributed to the leader’s direct reports for completion.

The data were analyzed, and two types of reports were produced. The executive team report presented the results of the executive team capabilities as rated by the executive team and their staff. The team leader report was provided to each leader on the assessment of their individual team leadership capabilities.

Group sessions were held to give feedback on the results of the surveys. Team and individual team leadership feedback reports were distributed to the executive team members. Patterns, strengths, and areas for executive team development were presented. Participants were given reflection tasks to help interpret and understand their feedback and personal development planning templates to set their goals for improvement (see Exhibit 12.2).

A gap analysis confirmed the need to develop the executives’ capabilities across several areas. Design meetings were held with the participants as a team to explore the findings in greater depth and to prioritize development according to individual needs and business realities. As participants explored gaps and priority areas, they were able to begin opening up difficult issues, and fragile dynamics began to surface in a positive environment that would not have been possible in regular executive team meetings. This formal step allowed participants to develop their own objectives for the ETD program.

The objectives of the executive program were to develop a shared purpose of the executive team, which belonged to team members collectively and individually, and to strengthen team capability in these ways:

The first two success factors were identified for this stage:

The first challenge was getting the team to agree on the key issues and to begin the development program. The participants spent a lot of time at the start of the program discussing the areas to focus on by exploring the barriers (real or imagined) to higher team performance. The objective was to ensure the program was developed based on their real needs (individual and business), which would improve buy-in and serve as a success factor early on. Other initiatives used to enhance buy-in were ongoing evaluation to examine and evaluate whether the development efforts were in alignment with the program objectives and business needs, emphasizing the practicality and benefits of the program, and continuous active involvement and support from the head of the division. The team’s current problems formed the basis of practical work, which helped to achieve skills building and problem solving simultaneously during the development. This contributed strongly to participant buy-in.

Second, the executive team questionnaire was used as a measurement tool to identify gaps between the current and the ideal results. Implementation strategies for each of the three targets were agreed to by the executive team to close the capability gaps. The first set of targets focused on improving a number of team capabilities, the second on developing nonexecutive capability, and the third on improving culture and customer service. Relevant measurement tools and implementation strategies were put in place for these targets.

In between each workshop, participants worked on real-life problems or projects, such as succession management guidelines, a work prioritization model, a meetings framework, and initiatives to increase integration in the DTF. Participants met in small subgroups to work on the project and apply learnings from the previous workshop. These tasks were not separate from their regular work but were an opportunity to implement the learning as part of a team task. This all helped to ensure that action learning principles were kept at the heart of the process. Activities in the workshops were highly participatory and designed with the belief that learning and change best occur through reflection and experience.

Sessions were organized in five categories: learning contract, information sharing, experiential learning, theory and practice, and skills building. All sessions worked with actual team issues where the group supplied the content, drawing on its real goals, tasks, relationships, processes, and norms.

All experiential activities were followed by a debriefing where participants:

The experiential activity generated data and experiences that were used to teach concepts, ideas, and behavioral insights. Each workshop consisted of consultant- and business-led activities. In the consultant-led sessions, the consultant provided a structure and process to help the group work through its activities. Business-led sessions were facilitated by a business representative or a participant.

In the second activity, information sharing, the team iceberg metaphor (see Figure 12.3) was used to explain the depth of the program interventions: as you go deeper into the iceberg, the level of risk increases and the emotional work increases.

The third session, on skill building, covered team processes (problem solving, consensus creation) and team discussion behaviors (initiating, linking, supporting, and closing). Participants were encouraged to focus on practicing these skills in subsequent sessions.

The final session was on theory and practice. Aspects of team char tering were facilitated and led by both the consultant and participants, and the consultant facilitated a review of the team mission.

Workshop 2 began with theory and practice. The team performance curve shown in Figure 12.4 was introduced to educate participants on the difference between working groups and real teams and to get agreement on their common purpose. Teams cannot succeed if members remain unclear about what the team wants to accomplish and why. Participants learned guidelines for giving and receiving feedback and then practiced them with their learning buddy. They discussed team dynamics such as behaviors to facilitate openness, interdependency, and trust building and to foster creative tension.

In the experiential learning session, a self-reflection process, “Uncovering Your Big Assumptions,” was conducted to foster understanding of what was getting in the way of working together. This process provided participants with valuable insights into their unconscious behaviors and assumptions that were hindering teamwork. Participants were asked to test their assumptions when back at work and commit to correcting them.

Workshop 3 was devoted to theory and practice. The display of competitive behavior in the team continued to be a stumbling block to real teamwork. The session on managing competitive behavior acquainted participants with styles of interaction (see Figure 12.5) and offered them an opportunity to reflect on their own experience and contributions to competitive behavior. Through a facilitated discussion, a set of guidelines for managing competitive behavior was agreed to by the team.

Two more success factors were addressed here:

Many hours in the early stages of the program were spent discussing performance goals and priority areas for development. These discussions surfaced latent tensions, which occasionally brought team progress to a halt. To break the deadlock, executive team members were asked to address the success factor of achieving a common team purpose and reflect on fundamental questions such as, “What should be the role of the executive team?” “Are we a working group or a real team?” Only when there was shared agreement on the leadership role and goals could genuine progress be made on improving the executive team’s capability to perform.

During the program, members were distracted by environmental turbulence such as changes to the composition of the team and the sad, and sudden, death of the head of the department and subsequent arrangements and restructuring for the acting leadership. These pressures and distractions often drove team members back to old habits of protecting their patch and focusing on individual accountabilities.

To overcome resistance, the organizational development consultant drew on the relational consultant model (Van Beekum, 2006), which focuses on the unconscious. This is achieved when the consultant shares his or her internal experiences of how the group is functioning, brings the members into the process, and uses experiential activities to unravel the assumptions and belief systems that are driving behavior. This was a powerful exercise and turned out to be a significant success factor for the initiative.

In one session, the consultant pointed out that participants were using external factors to resist change. The consultant held up the mirror to the team, highlighting that they were using external factors to justify their resistance to change rather than focus inwardly on themselves. Once they were conscious of the behaviors, they could manage and address them. This session also increased participants’ acceptance and ownership of the resistance. For example, the executive team blamed poor results from a culture survey on external factors rather than on their own leadership. The consultant called the team on their display of resistance, which led to an increase in the team’s understanding of the covert dynamics used to avoid behavior change.

During the session, the consultant became part of the process by allowing herself to be affected by the group’s behavior and then describing how she felt when specific behaviors occurred. For example, hostile and oppositional behaviors were displayed toward the consultant when she offered perceptions and insights on the dynamics of the team. She shared these feelings with the team in an effort to bring covert behaviors to the surface.

The consultant used the model of process consultation (Schein, 1988) to give the team insight into what was going on around them, within them, and between them and to help them figure out how to improve the situation. This team looked at how it functioned as a team. Who took the leadership roles? Did people listen to each other? Were different views encouraged?

The role, mission, and goals of the leadership team were identified and given to participants to refine and bring back for agreement (action learning projects) in one of their fortnightly team meetings.

Workshop 3, also on experiential learning, looked at how executives could change from a tendency to focus on themselves and their tasks and instead concentrate more on the strategic management of the business. The problem of senior management succession was explored and the role that a consistent approach to performance measurement and actions can play to ensure a suitable supply of up-and-coming executives.

In information sharing, a presentation by the head of the division on issues facing the DTF and ministerial expectations provided useful information for the next segment on the strategic plan, output requirements, workload, and budget capacity. This sparked the beginning of an ongoing discussion on priorities and approaches to resource allocations. This was a milestone in the team development journey because the sharing of resources signaled that the working group was becoming a real team.

The pulse check survey was an interim measure before the formal reassessment of executive team capabilities in December 2006. The results were intended to refocus and reenergize the improvement efforts of the executive team members.

Executive team members and staff reported an increase in teamwork and team effectiveness. The responses indicated immediate improvements, such as improved communication with staff on their development goals, increased effort toward working together, and acting more on staff feedback.

Team leaders who were actively seeking feedback from their staff had the largest reported improvements in their overall team leadership effectiveness. Team leaders who scored low on the feedback had the lowest level of improvement in team leadership. This indicates a positive correlation between seeking feedback from staff and improvement in team leadership effectiveness.

Two more success factors were now identified:

At the executive team’s fortnightly meeting, a team process review was conducted to heighten team members’ awareness of both functional and dysfunctional behaviors in the team. A team process review focused on how the group arrived at its decisions, drew conclusions, solved problems, debated issues, and handled conflict. Exhibit 12.4 shows the team process observation guide. The process was critical as it heightened leaders’ awareness of team dynamics, which enabled them to intervene effectively in the group. After the consultant demonstrated how to conduct a process review, the task was rotated among the team members.

Coaching and debriefing were provided to leaders who were running workshop sessions and chairing team meetings. Prior to the meeting or workshop, the consultant worked with the leader on the agenda, areas of development for the leader, and advice on managing dysfunctional team behavior.

Debriefing was a review of how the leader managed the session, a focus on process dimensions, and a discussion of conceptual models to explain team phenomena. Leaders found this a valuable exercise because the debriefing experiences crystallized the concepts, insights, and learning. Debriefing was the key to making chairing the meeting or team leadership a meaningful learning experience.

Sessions were held for groups of six participants and lasted ninety minutes. The facilitator set the scene and the group rules. Participants were allocated fifteen minutes for receiving feedback. Each peer was asked to give feedback to the recipient on two areas: strengths and areas for development. Participants were asked to take ownership of their own feedback time—for example, by recording the feedback, nominating specific areas for feedback, asking for clarification, and sharing responses to the feedback.

During the process, the facilitator provided prompts to ensure the feedback was balanced and all participants had sufficient time. At the subsequent workshop, participants spoke about their personal plan to become more effective in the team. Participants gained a lot from these sessions, and many said that they had grown personally as a result.

First, formal reassessments of the original survey were administered to both team members and their direct reports. A substantial improvement was made on all factors (team context, structure, process dynamics, and dialogue behaviors) of team capability as rated by staff and the executive team. The greatest progress was identified in the following areas: better functioning in team meetings; increased sharing of information; better commitment to continuous improvement; and enhanced team skills in decision making, communication, and problem solving. Figure 12.6 shows a comparison of the ratings between executive team members and staff members for the first assessment periods (March 2006) and the reassessment (November 2006).

Second, staff and participants were asked open-ended questions immediately after the program and then six months later. Their responses demonstrated four areas of achievement:

Finally, consultant observation of the executive team found improvements in how the team worked together to achieve the team task and the processes used to do the task. As a method of data collection, this required a significant amount of cooperation and goodwill on the part of the team to allow the consultant access to the team and their work.

It is difficult to trace convincing causal links between the team development interventions and business changes because the impact on the business can be due to a variety of factors, such as changes in the composition of the team, other HR or organizational development interventions, or technical or social system influences. While the extent of upstream and downstream benefits flows has not been measured, feedback suggests a growing internal alignment in DTF. That is, behavioral integration has resulted in communication at DTF that is more consistent and more broadly based, reflecting better process.

The commitment and support of senior management for the ETD program sent a positive signal to the direct participants that they are valuable and worth investing in, creating a “feel good” factor. This helped to create an open, trusting, and valuing culture and revitalize DTF’s top talent, which the intervention was designed to achieve. It also provided a marker for continuous improvement indicating that this is the beginning of the journey toward achieving the aspired culture.

This illustrates the final success factor:

Collaborating with members of the executive team on the design and delivery of the work was a critical success factor. The consultant met regularly with the executive team leader, acting executive team leader, and another senior member to sound out ideas to ensure that the program reflected the context in which they worked and that it would meet the participant’s needs.

The achievements of the program and the demonstrable shift in behavior and performance were measures of the success of the intervention. Learning from this program has been leveraged and used in other team and leader development programs at DTF and will continued to be used in the next generation of action learning and team development at DTF.

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