The Five Behaviours of a Cohesive Team™ has a simple goal: to facilitate a learning experience that helps professionals and their organisations discover what it takes to build a truly cohesive and effective team. The Five Behaviours profile, which provides both individual and team feedback, is grounded in the model described in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, the internationally best-selling leadership story by Patrick Lencioni. With this programme, participants will learn how, as a team, they score on the key components of the model:

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The programme is powered by Everything DiSC®, a self-assessment profile that helps individuals to understand themselves and others better. Using these results, participants will be able to create a better, stronger team.

 

The Five Behaviours of a Cohesive Team™ helps members balance their individual workplace styles with an appreciation of those of other members. A team functions well beyond co-existence, achieving business results when members learn to master The Five Behaviours.

 

TRUST - BUILDING THE FOUNDATION OF A COHESIVE TEAM

 

Trust can only happen when team members are willing to be completely vulnerable with one another. There is confidence among team members that their peers’ intentions are good and that there is no reason to be protective or careful around each other.

 

How does a team build vulnerability-based trust?

 

Using a behaviour assessment like DiSC can give team members deeper insights into themselves and their peers. It can help people understand each other and become comfortable being transparent about personal limitations.

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CONFLICT - EMBRACING HEALTHY CONFLICT IS POSSIBLE WITH TRUST

 

Even though many of us may naturally try to avoid conflict at work, by doing so, we’re missing out on the kind of passionate debates that are essential to any great team. All lasting relationships require productive conflict in order to grow.

 

When team members build a foundation of vulnerability-based trust, conflict simply becomes an attempt to find the best possible answer. Productive conflict around concepts and ideas has the potential to produce the best possible solution in the shortest period of time.

 

How does conflict help teams succeed?

 

A team that engages in conflict minimises politics and puts critical topics on the table for discussion. It also extracts the ideas of all members, helping to solve real problems quickly.

 

COMMITMENT - BUYING IN ON DECISIONS DESPITE INITIAL DISAGREEMENTS

 

In the context of a cohesive team, commitment is clarity around decisions, and the ability to move forward with complete buy-in from every member of the team – including those who initially disagreed with the decision. Great teams understand they must be able to commit even when the outcome is uncertain and not everyone initially agrees.

 

How do different DiSC styles generally approach commitment?

D colleagues have a take-charge attitude and want to make up their minds quickly.

i colleagues rely on personal relationships and may be more apt to commit when they feel a sense of team spirit.

S colleagues are careful decision-makers and want to be sure before they commit.

C colleagues are swayed by objective information rather than emotion or intuition.

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ACCOUNTABILITY - CALLING OUT BEHAVIOURS THAT MIGHT HURT THE TEAM

 

It’s not uncommon for people to be unwilling to tolerate the interpersonal discomfort that accompanies calling out a peer on his or her behaviour, preferring to avoid difficult conversations. Effective teams overcome these natural inclinations, opting instead to ‘enter the danger’ with one another.

 

Applying peer pressure is a good thing when it comes to workplace teams. It gives team members a sense of feeling trusted and respected, and members feel a responsibility to get things done right.

 

DiSC styles tend to prefer receiving productive feedback in different ways:

 

D co-workers prefer a straightforward delivery.

i co-workers want a positive explanation.

S co-workers prefer a considerate but direct delivery.

C co-workers want a truthful, logical explanation.

 

RESULTS - STAYING ACCOUNTABLE AND FOCUSED ON COLLECTIVE RESULTS

 

The ultimate goal of encouraging trust, healthy conflict, commitment, and accountability is to achieve results. And yet, as it turns out, one of the greatest challenges to team success is the inattention to outcome-based results.

 

Aren't all teams working toward results?

 

Results would naturally seem to be the driving force behind a team. However, sometimes team status and individual status goals get in the way. A focus on team status occurs when merely being part of a group is satisfying enough, regardless of results. Individual status refers to the familiar tendency of people to focus on enhancing their own positions or career prospects at the expense of the team.

 

The emphasis is on collective results. Great teams ensure all members, regardless of their individual responsibilities and areas of expertise, are doing whatever they can to help the team accomplish its goals

 

The Programme

 

Pre-workshop

 

Each member of the team will need to complete an online Five Behaviours DiSC assessment. This profile results in a 36 page, highly personalised report for both the individual and the team and forms the foundation for the programme. A sample of the profile that will be generated is available here. 

 

Workshop

 

The Five Behaviours programme is designed to be as flexible as possible, and is constructed in a modular format, the content of which links to each of the stages of the model.

 

The content for each stages of the model follows a similar format, which includes:

 

• An introduction and definition of each of the layers, including video descriptions and explanations from the programme’s author, Pat Lencioni.

• A review of this team’s results produced by the self-assessment questionnaire

• Reflection and group discussion to fully understand the results and to provide context

• Small group activities, where appropriate, to demonstrate some of the behaviours and reinforce the key messages

• Clear action planning to determine the next steps/actions to be taken to work on the key areas and maintain those that are reported as strong.

 

Post-workshop

 

Following the workshop, it is imperative that the conversations continue to ensure that the agreed changes to the team’s behaviour and operating practices are implemented and embedded. The action planning that falls out of the workshop will provide focus for this.

 

In addition, it is recommended that a follow-up assessment is generated, and a review workshop held, approximately six months later, which will provide tangible data relating to the team’s progress against each of the Five Behaviours.