New or changing team
A team's first weeks set the rules nobody discussed. A facilitated workshop at the start, when a new leader arrives or after a reorganisation, puts on the table how you work together, what each person expects from the others and how decisions get made. Before the habits settle on their own.
Sound familiar?
I took over a team and everyone expects something different from me. Some want autonomy, others want direction, and you don't yet know what the previous manager left behind. The first conversations happen one-on-one and contradict each other.
I merged two teams and they still work as two teams. Two ways of running a meeting, two file systems, two opinions about who decides. The reorganisation is finished on paper, but not in practice.
The team was built from scratch for a project that matters. Good people, brought in from several places, with a tight deadline. Nobody has time to discuss how we work together, and that is exactly what will cost the most three months from now.
- Duration
- ½ day or 1 day, ideally within the team's or the leader's first 60 days
- Format
- In person, online or hybrid
- Group
- 4–40 participants
- A good fit when
- the team is new, has a new leader, has merged with another or has significantly changed its members.
What comes out of the room
A set of working agreements written by the team, not by us. They usually cover four things:
- The team's purpose
- Why we exist, in one sentence everyone can say the same way. It sounds simple; it rarely is.
- Roles and expectations
- What each person expects from the others and from the leader, said out loud instead of guessed. Includes what the leader expects from the team.
- How we decide
- Which types of decisions exist in the team and who makes them: alone, after consulting, together. Most later tensions come from here.
- How we work day to day
- Meeting rhythm, channels, what "urgent" means, how we give feedback. Rituals the team chooses and tests for a month.
How we work on this
- Diagnosis. A conversation with the leader and a few short conversations with team members. We learn what was inherited, what was said and what was left unsaid about the change.
- Design. We build the day in two layers: connection first, so people see each other as people, then concrete agreements. We dose the exposure: nobody is asked to open up before they feel safe.
- Facilitation. The leader takes part as a member of the team and does not run the session. That is the whole point of an external facilitator at a beginning: the leader can say what they expect without also holding the process.
- Follow-up. At 30 days we review the agreements with the team: what worked, what was too ambitious, what changes.
Where it leads
If the team is not new but feels like one after a hard period, the topic is called team cohesion. If the working agreements are good and only the energy is missing, a day of facilitated teambuilding puts them to work.
Free tools on this topic
Frequently asked questions
Within the first 60 days, before habits settle on their own. If more time has passed, it is still worth it: a one-year-old team that has never discussed how it decides has the same problems as a one-month-old team, just better hidden.
They take part, as a member of the team. The facilitator holds the process so the leader can say what they expect and hear what the team expects from them, without also being the one moderating. Before the session we agree together what the leader wants to convey and what they want to find out.
They remain the team's, in a document the team writes in the room. We review them together at 30 days: what worked, what was too ambitious, what gets adjusted. Agreements that are never reviewed become, within a few months, one more list on the wall.
Yes, and it is one of the cases where it helps most. The two teams arrive with two ways of working, each considered normal. The session puts both on the table, without one being "the right one", and lets the new team choose what to keep from each.
Is your team new, under a new leader, or just changed?
A free 30-minute diagnosis tells us both where we are starting from.
Let's talk about your team