TEAMS: BUILDING CREATIVE TEAMS

Description

In this practical and engaging workshop there is input on team building, problem solving as a team, improving communication and handling conflict. This is participatory day of paper, pens, graphics, music and activity. There are no PowerPoint slides or even a projector and screen!

Team Building and Leadership

Early Years

Inclusion

Want a really creative, effective, inclusive team?

In this practical and engaging workshop there is input on team building, problem solving as a team, improving communication and handling conflict. This is participatory day of paper, pens, graphics, music and activity. There are no PowerPoint slides or even a projector and screen!

We keep the focus on interpersonal processes for getting the best out of the team. Making teams both creative and inclusive is fully explored and processes for maximising this examined. Effective leadership and management, which can transform teamwork through collaboration and consensus-building processes is covered.

We refocus the team on its capacities and gifts as well as give insights into what to do when individuals are off track.

The Native American medicine wheel guides us through four quadrants of leadership, vision, community and management.Harrison Owen in his work on ‘Open Space Technology’ depicts the ancient Medicine Wheel (Owen, 2003). This is derived from centuries of tradition among First Nation Americans and has informed many cultures in different ways. We have found this an extremely powerful metaphor for understanding the process of team and organisational change and renewal.

The wheel of change begins in the north with a leading idea, for us – there is a better way of creating a team for inclusion. Travelling clockwise to the east we develop a shared vision of what this could look like in our setting, school or community. Then moving south we ask who needs to come with us on the journey. We wish to take as many community members along with us as we can. In an Early Years setting , this would mean enrolling the support of manager, the wider staff group, parents and ultimately children. Finally, at the west, we manage and implement the idea. We take action and turn the inclusive team into reality.

The cycle of this medicine wheel is an excellent way to view change processes for any team, organisation or community. When we contemplate change, the risk is always that we will jump prematurely from the big ideas (leadership) to practice (management) and ignore the other two important phases of creating vision and engaging the wider community.

When the going gets tough and the inclusion of a child or young person is beginning to seem extremely difficult if not impossible many will conclude that the child should no longer be present. We would like to challenge this. Why do we move so quickly to assuming the child is in the wrong place? Surely the real question should not be ‘do they belong here?’ – but rather – ‘what team support is needed here for this to work?’

Or even more fundamental, ‘who needs a team around them at this time?’

Who needs the team? Who is struggling with the inclusion most?

Is it the young person, their practitioner or teacher, their headteacher, setting manager, their parent or even a member of the local support services?

Whatever the answer a team may need to be built, rallied or reformed. The nature of and number of that team will depend upon the situation. Diversity of membership will most surely be important to strengthen the quality of the support and of the ideas generated. Use radical rethinking when creating a new team or when revitalising an existing one.

Creating effective teams for inclusion requires a courageous capacity for understanding and nurturing change both within the team and with those who the team work with.

‘What a fun, enjoyable day its been. Motivating and made me laugh not fall asleep!’??

‘This was everything a team building day was supposed to be. I have learned a lot about the people I work with and my role within the organisation’

‘I had reservations about attending yet another team building day but this was executed by two great facilitators and they worked with us so we truly understood what we were thinking and feeling.’

‘Innovative and refreshing’

This course answers the following questions:

We work around the ancient medicine wheel as it guides us through the four processes of leadership, vision, community and management.

We place leading ideas in front of your team including ‘no kvetching’ and shared promises.

We create a shared vision of how your team would love to be.

We explore who the team is. When are they at their best? What happens when someone is off track? What do they really need? How do we take the community with us at a time of change?

Finally we look at the management role of the team. Getting things done together. We use problem solving together as our focus for this.

Finally your team will be asked to reflect. What has the training meant to them?

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