McCarthy Consulting Group coaches teams while they work to increase awareness and application of the collaborative capabilities teams need to develop to turn a collection of individuals into a high performing team.

Locked in Patterns
With an increased reliance on a team approach to address the complexities and interdependencies of critical organization initiatives teams must develop capabilities to balance individual performance objectives and team performance objectives.

Team leaders often expect that high performing individuals responsible for leading specific and distinct business areas should be able to put their business’ goals and objectives aside to work together to improve the performance of the entire organization.  In theory this should be easily accomplished but in practice there are often organizational and interpersonal structures and processes in place that make this very difficult to accomplish.

Teams establish patterns of action and interaction that hold enormous control over how they function and what they are able to achieve. Many of these patterns contribute to their success, while others inhibit organization performance, group process and personal development. By becoming aware of these patterns of action and interaction, teams have the option to consciously choose which patterns are helpful and which they need to leave behind to achieve their objectives.

Team Development as a Business Process
Teams are receiving too little data about how their structures, processes, and interpersonal behaviors are supporting or hindering goal achievement. Cultural norms around political politeness, conflict avoidance, or “not enough time” tend to stifle the candid discussions necessary for teams to work through the very issues that inhibit them from reaching their potential.

For team leaders it can be particularly difficult to evaluate how their personal engagement contributes to the underlying norms and patterns that exist on the team, yet they are likely the greatest single contributor to the structures and processes that control a team’s ability to perform. 

We engage leaders and teams ‘in the moment’ during meetings to raise awareness about strengths and potential problems of existing team processes.  By coaching teams while they work we are able to bring the theories and concepts of high performing teams to the interactions that are taking place and translate those theories into actions the team can apply immediately.

Modeling the skills to deliver valuable team and peer feedback and coaching others to deliver feedback regarding team processes and interpersonal dynamics, we help team members gain experience applying the skills to engage more directly and authentically.  When these behaviors are developed and encouraged during the regular course of business teams become experienced at developing the structures, processes and relationships that help them move from functional to exceptional team performance.

Opportunities to engage us:

“At team meetings we seem to deep dive on one issue or jump around from topic to topic eventually running out of time before making decisions.”

“We have exceptional people on this team, everyone expresses that they are working hard, and yet we are not making sufficient progress toward our objectives.”

Few practical ideas are more obvious or more critical than
the need to get perspective in the midst of action
- Heifetz and Linsky ~ Leadership on the Line