Team Learning Skills

Content:
The Team Learning Coach introduces team members to group skills: reflection, exploring each others' views, coming to consensus and brainstorming. Team members are introduced to 10 statements as they begin their journey to becoming a High Performance Team:

In our team/work groups:
1. people speak openly and honestly, without fear of criticism
2. people honestly believe that it's okay to disagree
3. different points of view are invited and respected
4. we share a common vision of the future
5. people are encouraged to question assumptions - their own and others'
6. mistakes are viewed as valuable learning experiences
7. it's a safe place to take risks
8. people consistently use formal and informal means to share what they learn
9. people are encouraged, even rewarded, for eliminating policies and practices that inhibit them or others in the organization
10. people are committed to contributing and being actively involved in team activities (attending meetings, being on time, staying the course when things get tough)

Addressing Conflict

Content:
Team members learn the four conflict styles (avoiding, accommodating, competing or collaborating) identified by Thomas-Kilmann and examine their own individual preferences. The Team explores the value of the collaborating mode. Team members also explore their uniqueness and how valuing these differences can benefit the team. The differences between idea and belief conflicts are explored, with team members identifying subjects they agree will not be discussed in the workplace (creating a neutral zone). The team also creates team groundrules for conflict resolution and personal action plans for becoming more collaborative.

Tangible Results:

• The team agrees Neutral Zone-topics the team will not discuss to avoid conflicts that could arise from differences in fundamental beliefs.
• The team creates its Team Groundrules for addressing conflict.
• Individual team members develop a Personal Action Plan to focus on being more collaborative with team members, co-workers, clients and suppliers.

Being Persuasive

Content:
Team members are introduced to the steps necessary for preparing and presenting a proposal as well as an action plan for implementing these new skills. They analyze the listener's needs, determine the conclusions the listener must arrive at and the proofs that will be required to be persuasive. In addition, team members identify work-related situations where they can apply these new skills.

Tangible Results:

• The team develops an Action Plan for presenting its proposal, including action steps the team will take if the proposal is approved or turned down.
• The team, or one of its members, presents its proposal for improving a work-related situation to the person with authority to approve or recommend the proposal.
• Individuals identify another work-related situation where they would benefit by being persuasive.

Coaching Others

Content:
Team members explore the elements of good coaching: objectivity, feedback, respect and sensitivity to the type and timing of coaching. Team members practice the new skills on each other, learn to ask for coaching and develop an action plan to give and receive feedback more often, including a daily performance notebook.

Tangible Results:

Each team member is asked to:

• coach a team member or co-worker.
• ask for coaching from a team member or co-worker.
• develop an Action Plan to give feedback and ask for feedback more often.
• keep a daily performance notebook as a record of his/her personal accomplishments and plans for improvement.

Customer Service Standards

Content:
Prior to implementing this module, the organization must research the behaviors that WOW their customers. With the "delights" identified, the team uses this program to establish customer service standards to ensure that customers are delighted every time. The Team Learning Coach (using a special Coach Guide) then recaps the output from all teams for team review and evaluation based on whether they meet customer need, would not cause negative reaction, are possible to deliver every time, and are within the team's authority to implement. The standards rated highest are then adopted by the full business unit.

Tangible Results:(The organization researches what delights its customers with respect to service.)

• Each team proposes customer service standards to meet the prescribed customer delights.
• Each team prioritizes all proposed standards according to guidelines.
• The standards rated highest are the ones the business unit adapts to meet the various customer delights.

Effective Listening

Content:
Team members learn about closed and open questions, active listening and explore physical barriers to listening. Team members learn to use the effective listening worksheet and establish personal action plans for improved learning. The team also agrees on a Listening Contract.

Tangible Results:

• The team establishes a Listening Contract.
• Individual team members develop a Personal Action Plan to set out specific plans for using the four Effective Listening skills at work:

• Structuring information
• Questioning techniques
• Paraphrasing to confirm understanding
• Empathetic listening to deal with the emotional messages

In addition, the team examines both physical and emotional barriers to good listening in their work environment.

Effective Negotiations

Content:
With the help of the interactive Negotiation Coach software, team members apply the skills taught in this program to an actual on-the-job negotiating situation. The team learns how to generate and analyze the information needed to effectively prepare for a negotiation, including developing a strategy and tactics appropriate to their situation and using interpersonal skills to establish rapport and develop a relationship with their counterpart(s). The team learns the importance of conceding and compromising skills in order to reach a solution that is mutually satisfactory to both parties, and the importance of preserving the relationship when it is not possible to reach agreement.

Tangible Results:
Guided by the Negotiation Coach software (on disk), each team member:

• identifies a specific work/life situation that calls for negotiating skills.
• analyzes that specific situation and his/her relationship with the other party.
• produces an analysis summary report for use during the Team Learning sessions.

Giving Recognition (Employee)

Content:
Team members explore the power of giving recognition and identify areas in which they can recognize the performance of their colleagues. They benchmark their communications skills, discover the team's shared values and learn the guidelines for giving and receiving feedback (which are to be applied in subsequent team learning experiences as well as on the job). The team discusses what behaviors merit recognition, discover the most important factors to job satisfaction, discuss how those factors can be achieved and come up with new ideas for giving recognition. Using a Recognition Log, team members develop an action plan for providing recognition and assisting their colleagues to improve their performance.

Tangible Results:
Individual team members assess their own "active listening" skills and identify areas they need to improve. Drawing on each other's knowledge and creativity, the team develops a list of ideas and techniques for providing recognition to their colleagues and each other. Individual team members identify specific people they feel deserve recognition and using the Opportunities for Giving Recognition Log, develop an action plan.

Giving Recognition (Management)

Content:
Team members explore the power of giving recognition and identify areas in which they can recognize the performance of their staff. Using the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Worksheet, team members explore the effect their behaviors have on their staff. The team discusses what behaviors merit recognition, discover the most important factors to job satisfaction, discuss how those factors can be achieved and come up with new ideas for giving recognition. Using a Recognition Log, team members develop an action plan for providing recognition and assisting their subordinates to improve their performance.

Tangible Results:

• Drawing on each other's knowledge and creativity, the team develops a list of ideas and techniques for providing recognition to their employees and each other.
• Individual team members identify specific people they feel deserve recognition and using the Recognition Log, develop an action plan.
• Plan to improve the performance of your weakest performer by reviewing your Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, vis-a-vis that person.

Key Elements of Business

Content:
Understanding basic business practices and accounting principles can help team members read and evaluate business plans for their unit and the company. Working with actual business unit reports, team members learn basic accounting terms, how to read and analyze a balance sheet and income statement, how to interpret periodic results and how their organization monitors its business practices and measures success. Upon completing the unit, team members are expected to review the business unit's monthly reports to identify significant variances, explain the causes and identify corrective actions. Organizations are encouraged to customize the content of this unit to reflect the key elements of business relevant to their industry or business sector.

Tangible Results:

• With a basic introduction to fundamental accounting principles, the learning teams begin to practise how they can control or influence the key elements of your business.
• Working with actual business unit reports and the company's latest annual report, they interpret periodic results and take corrective action within their responsibility.
• Each person develops plans to review the business unit's monthly reports to:

• identify significant variances within their control.
• explain why those variances occurred.
• take corrective action to reverse negative trends.

Making Decisions

Content:
The video in this program presents the difficult decision President Kennedy faced during the Cuban missile crisis. Team members complete each step of the decision-making process as if they were among the President's advisors. Team members learn the six steps to good decision-making: clarify the purpose, define success criteria, generate choices, troubleshoot the choice selected and identify actions to take to implement it (codified in the Go/No-Go Decision Form and the Making Decisions Form).

Tangible Results:

• The team has a choice of a final activity to practice using the six-step decision-making process. The team can choose to focus on a Work-Related Decision or to complete The Citizen's Award exercise.
• In either scenario, the team is expected to follow and complete the Making Decisions Form to arrive at a decision that all can support.

Managing Change

Content:
Being conscious of feelings and reactions to change and understanding that managing change requires deliberate action are vital parts of being in control of change rather than being a victim of it. Team members explore coping techniques to reduce stress and anxiety in each stage of the Transition Process: endings, neutral zone and new beginnings. The team takes concrete steps to help its members take control of their own situation in relation to a specific work-related and/or personal change situations.

Tangible Results:

• The team agrees on a work-related change situation that currently affects most or all of the team members. The team plots its position on the Transitions Road Map at the start of the program and measures its progress on the same map at the end of the program.
• Every person on the team completes a deliberate series of introspective, thought provoking exercises to analyze his or her reactions and use proven coping techniques to reduce stress and anxiety.
• Through a series of discussions, brainstorming activities, and decision-making exercises, the team takes concrete steps to help its members take control of their own situation, rather than be victims of it.
Specifically, the team:

• decides how the team will mark the ending for its work-related change situation and then makes it happen.
• decides which techniques to adopt to reduce anxiety during The Neutral Zone and then implements those deemed best suited.
• decides how the team will symbolize New Beginnings and celebrate successes and then adopts those practices.

Partnership Sales

Content:
Designed for Account Teams and individual sales people, this program focuses on the new realities of sales. It examines the fact that the "deal" is not over when the contract is signed but rather requires team support to deliver continuous customer service and partnering with the client to ensure satisfaction. The team will examine all phases of the sales cycle, as well as the customer's decision-making process, develop profiles of its customers, identify additional information needed and brainstorm ways to deliver value-added service.

Tangible Results:

• The team establishes an Action Plan for setting an effective sales call, from pre-call planning, opening the call, investigating customer needs, handling objections, gaining commitment and establishing a follow-up plan.
• Account teams complete customer profiles in the Sales Call Planner to identify which conclusions and proofs will meet customer needs.
• Teams review the list of ideas brainstormed and determine ways for the team to maintain communications with the customer and add value to cement the relationship.

Planning Work

Content:
Focusing on an existing work routine or practice, the team works to complete a Plan Protector, identifying people who will be affected by the plan, problems that might arise, solutions for potential problems and contingency plans. In the process, team members explore the elements of a plan, the specific objects that a plan must meet to be successful and how to accomplish those steps.

Tangible Results:

• The team completes an Action Plan for revising an existing work routine or developing a project plan.
• The team completes a Plan Protector to identify people who will be affected by the plan and potential problems that might arise.
• The team identifies solutions and defines additional action steps to avoid the problems or to use as contingency plans.

Problem Solving

Content:
Using the Problem Solving Process, the team learns nine steps to successful problem-solving: define the problem in terms of what is happening and what should be happening; do research and conduct a cause and effect analysis; determine the most likely cause of the problem; generate ideas for potential solutions; evaluate solutions systematically; choose the best solution; develop an action plan; implement the plan; and evaluate the results. Team members practice the techniques and new tools on real work issues. The video for this program features a Sherlock Holmes mystery. Watch how the famous Sleuth uses our problem solving techniques to solve " The Mystery of the Morgue".

Tangible Results:

• The team develops an Action Plan for implementing a solution to a work-related problem.
• The team sets a date to meet again to evaluate the results after the plan has been implemented.
• Individual team members are instructed to select the personal or work-related problem that bothers them most and to plan when they will use the Problem Solving Process to tackle the problem.

Successful Meetings

Content:
"What a waste of ! arghh??" is an outcome of too many meetings. In this program, team members learn the basics of successful meetings, including preparing an agenda, leading the meeting, handlings disruptions and contributing as a participant.

Tangible Results:

• The team develops an agenda for an upcoming meeting, circulates it to critical participants, conducts the meeting and evaluates the results.
• Teams that do not have plans to conduct a meeting in the near future are guided to select one of the following options:

• Plan to meet with the Coach or Manager to discuss what's working, what's not, and share ideas on resolving problems they're having.
• Plan to report specific measurable results the team members have achieved on the job by applying skills they have learned through Team Learning.

Teams That Work

Content:
Team members learn the basic steps in team development: forming, storming, norming and performing. Using these principles, the team then develops Team Task Groundrules and Team People Groundrules to move their team forward. Team members also revisit the guidelines for Coming to Consensus, in great depth. The team then establishes a Team Goal and Action Plan for achieving the goal. If the learning team is not an intact work team, the Team Learning Coach can coach the team on using the principles to achieve individual goals.

Tangible Results:

• The team establishes a Team Goal that is specific, attainable and measurable.
• The team develops an Action Plan for achieving the Team Goal.
• The team establishes and documents its own Task Groundrules for working effectively together.

The Team Learning Lab

Content:
This comprehensive program brings the principles of Peter Senge's "The Fifth Discipline" into practice. It is designed to improve group performance and results by bringing the methods and tools of Systems Thinking, Mental Models and Shared Vision into the context of the team's work. Teams learn how to use the Mental Models tools to create open, honest and meaningful conversations. Systems Thinking enables the team to analyze, describe and picture the interrelationships at work in complex situations. Teams create a Shared Vision to get off the problem-solving treadmill. Finally, teams examine how to integrate these tools into their day-to-day work to accomplish their goals.

Tangible Results:

• The team develops a shared vision of the results each member wants to create and identifies the specific outcomes and daily tasks needed to accomplish these results.
• Individuals identify ways to change patterns and systemic structures that inhibit themselves and their team from achieving their vision.
• Team members use specific tools to analyze organizational practices, work-related situations and their own assumptions and behaviours. Awareness of their own mental models helps team members to create more honest, open, meaningful conversations with each other.

For a full description of The Team Learning Lab see: The Team Learning Lab... A Transformational Experience

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HIGH PERFORMANCE TEAM Learning Process

MRCC’s High Performance Team (HPTL) Learning is a genuinely new approach to developing people who work together into highly productive teams that achieve remarkable results.

… management team that increased sales by 25% and doubled profit in just 12 months.

… a team of machine operators after only 14 hours of learning together, committed to building bonds between the shop floor and management so their plant would become #1 in their company .

MRCC’s HPTL is unique in human resource development, but is based on the very foundation of human interaction. In order to appreciate this; consider for a moment your own personal relationships.

First, consider your very small circle (generally less than half a dozen) of closest friends and the way you relate to them.

Next, consider your acquaintances, personal as well as at work.

Now try to characterize the differences that mark these two different relationships.

Close Friends
High trust
Open Communication
Can engage in disagreements respectfully

Acquaintances
Ranges from ’Little’ to ‘No’ trust
Somewhat guarded communications
Ranges from ‘careful talk’ to ‘lipservice’

So you ask: What is MRCC’s approach that relies on the foundation of human interaction and yet has an over 80% chance of developing groups into High Performance Teams in under 20 hours?

Our process enables people who work together, to learn together and from each other how to become a High Performance Team (HPTL)!

There is no expert present to teach or ‘tell’ them - every member of the team will share their expertise on HPTL. A road map and a coach will support the team’s deliberations.

After less than 20 hours of very engaging - yet substantive discussions on various aspects of their “teamwork” the group dynamic begins to change. The group sheds patterns of defensiveness, such as lip service, being politically correct, saving face, protecting turf, etc.

Undiscussables surface; an openness is manifested; higher levels of trust emerge. Finally, the team crowns its achievement on becoming a High Performance Team by setting an ambitious goal that they will feel proud to have achieved.

And that’s the real basis of friendship - the ability to discuss important issues (whether personal or work related) and to arrive at a group consensus that feels like a win-win decision has just taken place. There are no losers. Everyone’s a winner in a High Performance Team.

The truth is that every one of us wants to belong to a High Performance Team. We all want to feel like a winner. And with MRCC’s High Performance Team Learning process we’ll show you how it evolves - naturally, quickly and with a very high degree of success. .

Team Learning Lab Implements Peter Senge`s 5 Disciplines

Over 80% of the teams that experience the 2-day Team Learning Lab will develop and be fully committed to incredibly ambitious goals.

Typical examples are:

* an executive team commits to triple digit growth for 3 consecutive years
* a middle management team commits to reduce delivery of product/service from
6 months to 2 days.
* a corporate team commits to reduce quotes to customers from 40 days to 5 days.

Companies like Ford, Hewlett Packard, Pratt & Whitney, Owens Corning, Seagrams, NASA and many others can attest to this sort of impact.

How has The Lab become such a transformational experience for teams?

The quick answer is: it strikes an emotional chord - it gets under the skin of every individual, and is amplified by the group experience.

A more complete answer is found in three factors:

1) Positioning
2) Process
3) Content

POSITIONING

The work team itself makes the decision whether to invest the two days to experience The Team Learning Lab. A brief presentation is made to them which describes the objective being primarily, to become a "High Performance Team" and secondarily, to provide indiividual and team learning. The presentation also describes the content, process and results from other teams taking The Lab. Invariably the team determines it will be worth the investment to become a “high performance team” (HPT)

PROCESS

Clients tell us that the most powerful factor is the unique MRCC Team Learning ™ process where people who work together, learn to learn from each other how to become a high performance team (HPT). There is no expert present to teach or ‘tell’ them - every member of the team will share their expertise on HPT. A road map and a coach will support the team’s deliberations.

After a number of hours of very engaging - yet very serious, substantive discussions on various aspects of their “teamwork” the group dynamic begins to change. The group sheds patterns of defensiveness, such as lip service, being politically correct, saving face, protecting turf, etc.

Undiscussables surface; an openness is manifested; higher levels of trust emerge.

Apart from occasional input from the Coach, all discussions are by members of the team.

CONTENT - Peter Senge`s 5 Disciplines divided into 3 topics

The content focuses on three topics:

1. Communications

a) How we can manage “hidden thoughts” to develop more open yet safe conversations on contentious issues.

b) How we can re-examine some of our preconceptions that color and freeze our thinking about people and things.

c) How we can use all these tools to balance advocacy with inquiry to come to real consensus with others around contentious issues.

2. Systems Thinking

The team starts to recognize that many problems they encounter are affected by factors outside their team. They learn how to resolve these systemic problems by using systems thinking tools. “Quick fixes” are replaced by more fundamental solutions; the team solves some real chronic problems and develops a greater sense of empowerment. It’s a revelation when the team discovers how myopic their thinking has been in the past and how effective systems thinking will be for their future.

3. Shared Aspirations

So far the team has been monitoring their progress to become a high performance team by using our team evaluation format on three separate occasions. They now see and feel their improvement. Their evaluations and discussions about their progress, further reinforces their commitment to their team.

They are finally ready to take very seriously (no lip service) the emotional factors that bind their team - their shared aspirations: “Where are we going? What do we want to achieve together”?

To coalesce around their shared aspirations they discover and openly discuss their personal visions and values including shared values. By this time the typical barriers to complete honesty have disappeared and they begin to build consensus around a shared vision or goal that inspires them.

There is a genuine sense of achievement and celebration among the team when they develop consensus on a business goal that challenges their best efforts. Based on the 2-day experience, they are now confident of meeting that goal. They are beginning to operate as a high performance team!

The team then develops action plans for achieving their shared vision or goal over a specific time frame with specific dates for reaching significant milestones.

What follows, is more detail of significant accomplishments from some of our Clients.

Manufacturing

Automotive
- 30% improvement in quality (highest jump in Ford’s history)
- Establishing the company’s records for ‘on time’ achievements
- Returning $65M of a $95M late change provision

High Tech
A middle management team from the Microwave Software Division, committed to reducing delivery to customers from 6 weeks to 2 days, and gave themselves 4 years to meet that target. This ambitious target galvanized the entire Division to support their team. After only 9 months, their delivery time is down to 2 weeks.

Aircraft
Improved collaborative behavior from among a diverse group of over 600 engineers helped reduce the time for developing an engine from an average of 30 months down to 10 months.

Automotive Parts
A team charged with developing quotes for customers reduced the quote time from 40 days to 5 days within 3 months.

Non-Manufacturing

Insurance
Seven different sales divisions that have previously not worked together or even shared client lists, decided to work collaboratively. They began to meet together; appointed a co-coordinator and began joint sales calls. This resulted in underwriting accounts and business that they had not previously underwritten - greatly increasing their total sales. (Exact amounts are considered competitive information).

Professional Services
In just 2 days working with the executive team, the 15 executives agreed to a goal of achieving triple digit growth by offering a variety of new services that integrate their four major divisions: Testing Systems/Litigation Systems/Document Systems and Logistics

Beverages
A customer service team, in New York, that is committed to being #1 in service by at least 90% of their customers within two years. Within four months, their Manager has reported that they have achieved this recognition.

Training That Supports Corporate Change

Team Learning: Training That Supports Corporate Change

Managing change is a challenge. Whether it's a new vision, a merger, a new quality program, or a team oriented strategy, few CEOs are satisfied with the tempo of change.

It's true that organizations have become more adept at introducing changes with the support of videos, "town hall" meetings, satellite hook-ups and other techniques. In addition there are a growing number of highly competent consultants available to deal with the technical aspects changes.

However, a third critical factor in the equation of change often goes unaddressed: the organizational culture represented by the entire employee population. The mechanics-the communications campaign and the consulting process-are relatively short-term initiatives. Cultural changes take longer to achieve, but without them, an organization cannot derive the full benefit from strategic initiatives.

Typical

Some examples of failed initiatives:

• After investing a great deal of effort, an organization defines a new vision. With much fanfare and hoopla, it distributes brochures and framed copies of the vision statement. A few months pass. The vision statement still hangs on the wall, but it is now just another piece of corporate furniture, and invisible.
• Two companies merge, aiming to exploit their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. A year passes, but the two companies remain "two solitudes" instead of merging into a unified organization.
• Another company re-organizes its employees to work in teams, hoping they will efficiently evolve through the four stages of team development-forming, storming, norming and performing. A year later, many teams are still storming, and performing is still just an Executive's dream.

Why are these failures so prevalent? Because most organizations focus on the hard stuff-the mechanics of change-to the detriment of the soft stuff-the people and the corporate culture. But in fact, the hard stuff is relatively easy; it's the soft stuff that's hard. Cultural change requires a consistent, people-oriented, long-term strategy.

Overcoming Alienation

Today, after a prolonged period of downsizing, re-organization and economic austerity, it's become even more difficult to enlist employee support. In the Darwinian environment of today's corporate workplace, employees realize that their own survival is not guaranteed, and they hesitate to take risks. No matter how good their ideas, they're often reluctant to express them or share them with others, in case their ideas are rejected or they're labeled as loose cannons aboard the corporate ship. As a result, even in the best organizations, few employees outside the executive ranks will spend much time engaged in a serious, sustained conversation about improving their work.

Yet somehow an organization has to find a way to encourage its employees to respond creatively to change. It has to challenge employees to think and talk about the changes over the long term, rather than ignoring them and filing them away with the rest of yesterday's news.

A Learning Organization

If a organization is going to survive, we need to provide people with the ability to receive and exchange new ideas and a forum in which to do it on a sustained basis. Organizations have to develop a culture that's receptive to change, where the seed of a major initiative can take root and flourish. According to Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline, a culture in which people are watchful and curious, where they strive for continuous improvement as a matter of course, is a Learning Organization.

One of the most effective ways we've seen to create such an environment is through a process we have been working with for the past three years called: Team Learning.

Small groups of four to five employees assume responsibility for managing their own learning without the need for trainer or classroom. Meeting for an hour every two weeks, employees share their work-related ideas to support the corporate initiative in their work area.

Essentially, team learning brings the art of serious and meaningful conversation back to the workplace. By learning to really communicate, employees abandon the backbiting and political in-fighting that inhibits change and robs a corporate culture of its vitality. Instead, individuals learn how to work together contributing to the organization's vision and putting its values into effect. Employees participate in change as it evolves.

To involve their employees in change, organizations first have to give them the skills to participate. They have to help employees learn to work together more effectively, and to manage themselves with less supervision in a downsized environment.

A Way To Reach All Employees

Through team learning, employees throughout an organization develop these fundamental skills. Even front-line, customer service and shop-floor workers-the people we rely on to bring an organization's vision to life-can participate, because learning sessions take only one hour every two weeks and need not impinge productivity.

In the process, employees learn to pay more than lip service to the corporate buzz words of the 1990s, such as empowerment, lifelong learning and continuous improvement. Like most clichés, these words describe valid and critical concepts but only when employees have the opportunity to put these concepts into action.

For several years, we've watched team learning in action. We've seen it help organizations focus more consistently on their vision. We've seen organizations create mergers that really work. We've seen organizations begin the difficult process of inverting the pyramid and empowering their employees. In fact, the impact of team learning that I've observed has surprised even me, and I helped to develop the concept.

How Does It Work?

Regardless of the subject, participants follow the basic ground rules of an effective learning team. These ground rules, inspired by the work of Peter Senge, are:

• Reflection
• Exploring each other's views
• Coming to consensus
• Brainstorming

Employees learn these skills in their brief team learning sessions, and they use them from day to day, on the job. They practise reflecting more deeply on their ideas before they express them; they practise exploring each other's views before trying to reach consensus; and they practise brainstorming like professionals. In short, they become adept at communicating.

More Than Meets The Eye

The obvious benefits of team learning are continuous learning and reduced costs, with little disruption to organizational routines. Other benefits are not so obvious. They include:

• Team building: The nature of team learning encourages bonding because people engage in serious conversations based on mutual respect. Participants learn to appreciate their team members and feel more appreciated themselves.

• Raising self-esteem: In a classroom environment, where an authority figure-the trainer-is present, adults sometimes feel afraid of looking like fools. In a learning team, this fear dissipates, and people are less inhibited from expressing their opinions. "When people have gained more confidence through team learning, they feel more comfortable expressing their ideas in business meetings," says Zlata Savic, Manager of Human Resources at Noranda Metallurgy. "Even the quiet ones now contribute their ideas."

• More effective decisions: Through team learning, people become more adept at exchanging ideas. "People make better and faster decisions," says Bill Wade, Director of Sales Development for Labatt Breweries. "In meetings, they can now accomplish in two hours what used to take them four to six hours."

• More fun: People learn better when they're having fun. They look forward to their team learning sessions, not just for the fun of learning, but for the sense of affiliation they feel with their team. As Jeffrey Friedman, former Vice-President of Human Resources for Novopharm, says, "Team learning has helped people gain a better understanding of the company and its objectives. People like participating, talking about issues, sharing experiences and exploring new ideas. It's nice to hear laughter and see people having a good time while they're learning."

• Reduce the "fade syndrome": The "fade syndrome" occurs when a participant is introduced to new concepts and techniques in a workshop or seminar but the memory fades and only a small percentage is applied to the job. With team learning, participants meet for an hour then go back to their work and there is peer pressure to practise what they had just discussed in their learning session.

Walking The Talk

The pressure is felt upwards as well. Managers; In fact, before team learning is introduced, we make sure that Managers recognize the positive impact they can have on their organization by being seen to apply their team learning skills on the job-and the destructive impact they can have if they don't walk the talk.

At The End Of The Day

"The continuing reorganization of work itself is part of a social transformation," observes Fortune magazine, "as massive and wrenching as the industrial revolution." Organizations can adjust to this difficult transformation in a positive way by relying on the power of shared ideas to pursue their corporate goals.

At the end of the day, organizations with the cultural flexibility to adapt to change and initiate new ideas will lead the way into the next century; organizations that can't adapt to change will wither. It's as simple as that.

by:
Mervyn Rosenzveig,Chairman
MR Communication Consultants Inc.

Reflections On Team Learning

When we first introduced Team Learning-essentially self-directed learning teams-we thought we had identified the key benefits.

• reduced costs
• little disruption to productivity since sessions are conducted in the workplace and in short time frames-1 hour per week or 1 hour every 2 weeks
• Just In Time (JIT) learning

Although these important benefits have been realized, perhaps the unexpected benefits have proven just as important.

Develops High Performance Teams that Achieve Remarkable Results

Clients tell us the most graphic indicator of the power of Team Learning is in the results achieved. Results that go far beyond what the organization would dare ask of the team. This results from the team learning process itself,. See: High Performance Learning Process

Supports Organizational Change

Several of our clients are enlisting Team Learning to support their vision or a change in strategic direction. Each subject or skill area is customized to relate back to the strategic initiative. This provides team members opportunities to have job related discussions on ways to support organizational direction.

In fact, the first two pages of their manuals are devoted to the strategic initiative and the reasons (usually from the CEO) why and how the organization expects to achieve its goals through the efforts of the learning team. For more information see: How Team Learning Supports Organizational Change.

Employee Development

Employees have traditionally not received personal development as an entitlement unlike Managers, salespeople, and professionals. Removing an employee off the line for a 1-2 day workshop or even a 1/2 day workshop meant too much dislocation and reduced productivity. But as more than one CEO has said to us: "I can afford to invest 1 hour every 2 weeks for my employees' development."

Team Bonding

Most Team Learning activities center around meaningful, job-related discussions between team members. They constantly share views and ideas; then come to consensus in a collaborative atmosphere. After 1 or 2 such sessions, mutual respect and bonding takes place. This has been well documented through evaluations of the teams' dynamics which are at the end of each program. The dynamics center around involvement by everyone; shared leadership by all; respect for differing opinions; respect for everyone's time.

Positions The Manager As Coach

Team Learning is an ideal forum for Managers to practise their coaching skills in a safe, non-threatening learning atmosphere.
The Team Learning Coach sits apart from the learning team (who are the primary focus). But the Coach is available to add value to the discussion and encourage the group.

Self-Esteem

In traditional workshops of 15-20 persons there is usually a small group which tends to be most active, while the rest sit quietly taking notes or day dreaming. But in Team Learning sessions everyone is participating at all times. This means that everyone will have a chance to express their opinions and get (generally positive) feedback from the group. This attention (new for many) serves to build self-esteem and confidence. Our clients report that business meetings are more productive and that "the quiet ones are starting to speak up."

Egalitarian

We're all familiar with the experience of participating in a business meeting where all sorts of opinions are being expressed, and eventually the most senior person present comes down in favor of one particular course of action. It's always amazing how everyone else in the room aligns themselves to the leader. We all know this type of consensus building doesn't fit our dynamically changing business environment. Meetings need to foster true consensus since it's the followers not the leader who tend to implement actions and need to be truly committed to the group's wishes. Team Learning provides a safe forum for improving skills at building group consensus and real commitment.

Empowerment

Today everyone wants to be involved with the way things are done in their work area. We have found that Team Learning sessions can be a valuable forum to give employees many opportunities to determine their group's work environment and norms of behaviour. For example, in one of our programs, Addressing Conflict, each learning team is empowered to make the following decisions:

• Which "basic" beliefs that could lead to inter-team conflict should be set aside in the team's Neutral Zone.
• What each member of the team needs to "Stop Doing" and "Start Doing" to address conflict more constructively.
• What benefits and potential drawbacks each member brings to the team, with a view to recognize benefits and to try to turn drawbacks into benefits.
• In addition, the team comes up with a "Contract" that identifies a set of groundrules on how to address typical conflict situations if they arise.

Each of the programs in the Team Learning Series has similar job-related decisions that the learning team makes that will foster a healthier work environment. Real empowerment.

Peer / Subordinate Pressure

Educators have always employed techniques to try to maximize the amount of learning that will be applied to the job. Sign offs by the immediate supervisor; "refresher" videos; mystery shoppers; "self" and "other" evaluations of our work are but a few of the techniques used.

Team Learning employs two additional methods:

• Peer pressure by learning team members to apply the skills and decisions they discussed during the Team Learning sessions.
• Pressure by subordinates who, because they tend to take the same subjects as their managers, are now more familiar with what to expect of their managers in the way of behaviours (and their managers are aware of this too).

For example, when managers and employees take Successful Meetings, they learn a set of groundrules on how meetings should take place. This protocol will either be followed or not. If managers do not to "walk the talk" they are immediately seen as such by their own staff. This is an indirect way to pressure managers to be role models of the skills and techniques introduced in each Team Learning program.

Adult Learning Principles

MRCC designed the process for Team Learning to be consistent with Malcolm Knowles' adult learning principles:

• Adults need to know why they should learn something.
• Adults have a deep need to be self-directing (to decide what they will learn and when they will learn).
• Adults have a greater amount and different quality of experience than youth to draw upon. Adults become ready to learn when they experience a need to learn.
• Adults enter into a learning experience wanting to solve a real job-related problem.
• Adults are motivated to learn by both external motivators (recognition/rewards from others) and internal motivators (personal satisfaction/sense of accomplishment).

In keeping with Knowles' principles, the Team Learning process was designed to achieve the optimum conditions for learning:

• mutual trust and respect
• collaboration rather than competition
• peer-support rather than peer-judgement
• an informal atmosphere that encourages fun
• a mechanism for mutual planning
• a process for learners to evaluate their learning outcomes
• a process for learners to share their ideas with the rest of the organization

Learning Styles

According to the research of Kolb, Peters, Pfeiffer, Rogers, and Murrell, people have preferences for how they acquire and assimilate information to solve problems-or how they learn. Kolb describes four learning styles: Concrete Experience, Reflective Observation, Abstract Conceptualization, and Active Experimentation. Although no one style is best-just a preference to learn in a particular way-it is important for us to develop the ability to learn in all domains.

Team Learning appeals to all of the learning styles through a variety of activities and multi-sensory stimuli; individual reflection, video presentation, group discussion, brainstorming, skill practices, games, puzzles, and so on.

The Learning Cycle

Experts like Kolb, Pfeiffer, and Pike believe that to learn we must complete "the learning cycle." That is, we will only learn from our experience if we reflect on that experience, then generalize to draw our own conclusions, then test our conclusions by experimenting with new behaviors or techniques.

You may subscribe to Kolb's four stage learning cycle, or Pfeiffer's five stage Experiential Learning Cycle (Experiencing, Publishing, Processing, Generalizing, Applying), or Pike's three stage ADA (Activity, Discussion, Application), or another of your preference.

Regardless of which model you prefer, you believe that effective learning experiences must guide the learner through the entire cycle. In the classroom, the instructor or facilitator provides that guidance. In Team Learning, following a one-time orientation session led by the Team Learning Coach, the workbook instructions and sequence of activities guide the team through the learning cycle without a trainer. Leadership is shared by all participants.

The Team Learning Coach

How can you help Managers become more Coach-like towards their staff? This transition is being attempted at many organizations today with mixed results.

Team Learning is an ideal forum for Managers to practise their coaching skills in a safe, non-threatening learning atmosphere.

The Team Learning Coach sits apart from the learning team (who are the primary focus). But the Coach is available to add value to the discussion and encourage the group.

Team Learning Program Content

In 1992, Criterion Research Corporation, an independent market researcher contracted by the Ontario Training Corporation, surveyed 78 organizations in the private, public, and financial sectors to have them identify the critical skills employers want. Based on that market research and extensive study in the area of high performing teams and dysfunctional behaviours and influences that prevent teams from performing, MRCC developed the core Team Learning programs using the team learning design methodology:

Team Learning Skills
The concepts of Reflection, Discussion, Brainstorming were inspired by Peter Senge's "The Fifth Discipline".

Addressing Conflict
Adapted from the Thomas & Kilmann model of conflict styles.

Being Persuasive
Adapted from MRCC's Presentations That Work, a program that has won international awards and received acclaim from ASTD's Journal as "the best communications course available."

Coaching Others
Designed following the principles and concepts of MRCC's successful Coaching That Works workshop program.

Customer Service Standards
Developed through a customer service initiative in conjunction with the Toronto Dominion Bank.

Effective Listening
Based on MRCC's Effective Listening workshop program, developed in 1978 in partnership with Gulf Oil.

Effective Negotiations
Adapted from MRCC's Effective Negotiations workshop program.

Giving Recognition
Developed from various sources, including General Accident Assurance of Canada.

Key Elements of Business
Developed in conjunction with Aviall Inc.

Making Decisions
Designed using the decision-making model developed for MRCC's Management 1 workshop program, developed with the support of Gulf Oil.

Managing Change
Based on the writings of William Bridges.

Partnership Sales
Adapted from MRCC's Partnership Sales workshop program, developed with Philips Lighting.

Planning Work
Adapted from MRCC's Management 1 workshop program.

Problem Solving
Developed through research from a variety of problem solving models.

Successful Meetings
Adapted from MRCC's Management 1 workshop program.

Teams That Work
Developed from various sources involved in researching high performance teams and teamwork.

The Team Learning Lab
Based on Peter Senge's "The Fifth Discipline" and the practical applications at Ford.

"Team Learning is vital because teams, not individuals, are the fundamental learning unit in modern organizations...unless teams can learn, the organization cannot learn.

The discipline of team learning involves mastering the practices of dialogue and discussion, the two distinct ways that teams converse. In dialogue, there is the free and creative exploration of complex and subtle issues, a deep "listening" to one another and suspending of one's own views. By contrast, in discussion, different views are presented and defended and there is a search for the best view to support decisions that must be made. Team learning also involves learning how to deal creatively with the powerful forces opposing productive dialogue and discussion in working teams. For example, faced with conflict, team members frequently either "smooth over" differences or "speak out" in a no-holds-barred, "winner take all" free-for-all opinion. Yet the very defensive routines that thwart learning also hold great potential for fostering learning, if we can only learn how to unlock the energy they contain. The inquiry and reflection skills begin to release this energy, which can then be focused in dialogue and discussion. Lastly the discipline of team learning, like any discipline, requires practice. Yet this is exactly what teams in modern organizations lack. In fact, the process whereby such teams learn is through continual movement between practice and performance, practice, performance, practice again, perform again."

Peter M. Senge
The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization

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