Team and Group Facilitation

This is a highly varied aspect of LKB business as often the request is situated somewhere between teaching a few appropriate techniques to a team so that its members communicate more effectively together and mediating a potentially challenging meeting for a group within the same company. My services are often most useful in an international context. At times the assignment looks like a team building exercise and indeed, in many ways, it IS always just that and at other times it is simply being the outside eye, ear and voice that comments on what is happening and invites participants to notice what they would like to do about it.

I very often work with a fellow coach/facilitator to assure the double roles of lead ”and “observer support. I work exclusively with Team Management Systems profiling tool when a team needs to answer the question who we are and where is our strength ?This tool helps members of a team understand the added value and potential difficulty of working with diverse energies. You can consult the tool on line at www.agence-tm.com/queslist.htm

Case Study 1 - Valeo

Project: “" A Chat with the Chairman"”
Create the conditions for an informal and informative chat between senior and junior levels of management. The initial purpose was to sow the seeds of a lasting relationship between high potentials and the company.

Result: An afternoon workshop to create the conditions for a favourable meeting, facilitation of the encounter and dinner. This is now an integrated  and regular part of management practice at Valeo.

Project: " Together in Diversity" - Annual Branch Meeting workshop

Create and facilitate a three hour evening workshop for over 100 managers worldwide with a view to enhancing the quality of understanding between the 10 different nationalities represented. This needed to be achieved with humour, speed, depth and incorporate an appreciation of the value of working with cultural diversity.

Result: China, Brazil, America, France, Germany, Mexico and one mixed group of several nationalities expressed, through art materials, what it was like to work with someone from their culture. Video screens helped guarantee the visioning of each group's work. Listening was intense and the quality of discourse confirmed a real desire to work successfully with diversity.

Case Study 2 - Thales

Project: “"Team 2006" - two day off site workshop for the Division Communications team

Bring people together from all over Europe and create the conditions for a clearer understanding of roles, needs, wants and expectations between members of the team. The team had undergone a lot of change and the demands for higher levels of production and quality had increased. The team leader needed to re-assert her leadership role and gain the trust and support of her team members. TMS profiling was used to gain time in achieving this. Team members were interviewed individually face to face or via video conference and a process was built to foster better communications between them as people, first, and as co-workers second.

Result: A far greater understanding between France and the UK was achieved and the team leader was able to identify the issues that needed to be dealt with. Roles were clarified and real feedback was given and received.

Project: "Team 2007"”

Facilitate and possibly mediate the first meeting between the Communication, Marketing and Business lines services and HR with a view to producing a coherent and comprehensive Communication Plan for 2007.

Result: Data was collected in a systematic way enabling for the first time the construction of a forward looking budgeted communication plan. Having the presence of the outside eye, ear and voice ”allowed identification of the loopholes and weaknesses in the system.