30 September 2010

A View From The Balcony: Taking a different perspective on teams

Fiona Scrase and Daphne Taylor, Diamond Edge

Systems thinkers like W. Edwards Deming and Russell L. Ackoff encouraged organisations and managers to adopt a different perspective; one of taking a broader, whole system view, of seeing flow, impact and patterns in order to make improvements and enhance performance.

At our September meeting, Fiona Scrase and Daphne Taylor invited us to view teams as one whole system and see how this perspective can shift our understanding and experience of the relationships, tensions and productivity of a team. This approach, developed by the Center for Right Relationship draws on aspects of positive psychology, Co-active coaching, Emotional Intelligence, Appreciative Inquiry, Systems Theory, Process Work, Interest based bargaining and mediation. It enhances a team’s performance through developing its emotional intelligence and improving relationships so the team is empowered to collectively innovate, debate and create.

Often a team cannot see or experience itself as a system.  Yet when it can, the team is able to start to self regulate and adjust, and begin to develop relationship systems intelligence and skills, and improve positivity and performance.

This experiential session covered:

• the voice of the system, how to hear it and what behaviours support it;
• working with the 3rd entity of a team;
• the different levels of reality teams operate in and how they help or hinder; and, if we have time,
• the four team toxins.

The speakers

Daphne Taylor & Fiona Scrase are directors of Diamond Edge, a company dedicated to developing individuals and teams. Daphne specialises in senior team and board coaching, drawing on many years of coaching executives combined with a background as a chartered accountant. She has extensive experience as a board member including as Company Secretary of a public company, and is highly experienced coach and facilitator. Recently Daphne became one of the first coaches in the UK to have been listed on the Board and Team Coaching Register of the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement.

Drawing on 14 years of experience, starting in local government, Fiona now specialises in organisational and team development through individual and team coaching, facilitation, and action learning. Her passion is to continuously deliver appropriate people and business focused development solutions that develop staff, enable collaborative team working and innovation and add real value to organisations.

Resources

You can download a copy of Daphne and Fiona’s slides from the session.

What participants said

“Would have been interesting to have developed theory beyond the actual consultation with a team i.e. where the speakers have been to visit a team / organisation what was the feedback over the subsequent months?”

“The question and answer sessions were really helpful and it may have been useful to include more of this.”

“Thank you for the wonderful welcome.”