Earlier this year, as I was wrapping up a two-day team workshop, one of the senior team members came up to me and said:
‘This was incredible. We never have those conversations. We really needed that. You made it possible for us to go there.’
This both surprised me and didn’t.
When Strong Teams Still Need Support
I know that, as much as I teach leaders how to create those spaces (where they can have the conversations) themselves, and how to create a shared language within a team, they can only get so far without external help.
So often, the common reasons for engaging a facilitator to work with a team are something like:
- We have some problems we need help addressing
- Things are so bad in the team we need help! Yesterday!
- The team is asking for a some development, or
- We have a budget for team development and we need to use it or lose it.
When Everything Looks Good on Paper—But Something’s Missing
But before this particular workshop, as I was preparing, I realised that, on paper, this team was in pretty good shape: full of capable individuals, collaborating well, and a healthy work culture.
And yet, and yet. They engaged me to help them. Help them with what exactly?!
I was very curious as to what the time together would uncover, and where it would lead them.
With Boards and executive teams I have an opportunity to talk with each participant before we get in the room together, so I get a good sense of what is going on, and where they might be getting stuck.
With frontline teams I don’t usually get that opportunity, so I come into the day with only the manager’s perspective.
In both cases my role is to surface what’s unspoken – which is often easier to spot as an outsider – to make space for the real conversations they haven’t quite managed to have on their own.
It’s about getting everyone on the same page – heading in the same direction and sharing a commitment to creating the outcomes and results they need.
The Facilitator’s Role in Unlocking What’s Unspoken
Something happens when everyone – leaders and their teams – are around the table equally supported and invited to question, to reflect and to transform how they work together. And when they can do that in a safe space – because someone else is ‘controlling’ the temperature.
- There are questions that a leader wouldn’t think to ask their team. Or themselves.
- There are answers that a leader wouldn’t listen for.
- There are answers the team wouldn’t give to the leader, and so on.
So many variables that a third party – a facilitator – makes possible just through their presence and attention. (Of course, it helps if that person is experienced in team dynamics).
But what I’m getting at is that all those variables – the ones made possible in a leader + team + facilitator space, they change the outcome. Completely, often unrecognisably.
- People start saying the things they’ve been skirting around for months, sometimes years.
- Someone names a tension everyone has felt but no one has dared to articulate.
- Curiosity replaces defensiveness.
- The leader gets to see the team, and be seen by them, in a new light.
All because the team has the conditions to be honest, to listen, and to imagine something better together.
The Ripple Effect of Having the Right Conversation at the Right Time
In my over 25 years career, I have not yet seen a team that was not better off (in most cases considerably so) by being able to do this work. Because even the most capable teams need space to shift the dial, to listen, and to be listened to.
A Question to Ask Yourself About Your Team
If you’re wondering whether your team might need this kind of space to do this kind of work, ask yourself: when was the last time you all talked about how you work together, not just what you’re working on?
All good things,
Juliet Robinson
Leadership and Change Specialist
How I can help you.
Do you need help within your team? Let’s work together
