What Team Development Actually Looks Like (Part 4)

This is Part 4 of a four-part series on the difference between Team Bonding, Team Building, and Team Development.

In Part 1, I laid out why Team Bonding, Team Building, and Team Development are not the same thing, even though most organizations use the words interchangeably. In Part 2, I shared why Team Bonding is a great first step but rarely changes how people actually work together. In Part 3, I talked about the ceiling of Team Building and why most organizations mistake hitting that ceiling for being done. This week I want to close the series with my proudest moment as a leader, and what it taught me about what Team Development actually looks like in practice.

This is the last piece in my four-part series on Team Bonding, Team Building, and Team Development.

And I want to close it with my proudest moment as a leader.

I wasn't even in the room when it happened.

When I was managing a growing team, I set up a weekly meeting rotation with three tracks. The first track was about self. Not about leading anyone else, not about managing a team. Just about each person understanding how they show up, how they contribute, and how to become the best version of themselves at work. CliftonStrengths® was the foundation of that track (you know I love Strengths), but I also threw in other things I know about from being certified in Myers-Briggs, Working Genius, and others.

The second track was about managing others. For many of them, it was their first time leading others, so I gave frameworks to help with that based on Gallup's research on managing best practices that I learned and implemented myself.

The third track was Team Development. How do we work better together as a group? This included things like Patrick Lencioni's five principles for better teamwork from The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.

We rotated through all three with other work-specific content as well. Every week, something different. Over time, people didn't just know their own CliftonStrengths® themes. They knew each other's. And they started using that language at work, not in a workshop, not in a meeting I facilitated. Just in regular conversations.

That's when I knew something had shifted.

But my proudest moment came later.

Two skip-level reports on my team were moving into new roles where they'd be working together on their own. I found out after the fact that they had set up a meeting on their own, just the two of them, to talk about their CliftonStrengths® themes and figure out how they could best work together going into those new roles.

Nobody told them to do that. I didn't assign it. There was no workshop scheduled.

They just did it. Because that's what the language made possible.

THAT is Team Development.

Not a one-day workshop. Not an annual retreat. Not a team dinner, as good as those things are.

Team Development is when the people on your team internalize a shared language so deeply that they start using it on their own, in the moments that actually matter.

Here's the simplest way I know to put it:

Team Bonding creates connection and shared experiences, the foundation of trust. Team Building shows what is possible for teams to do when they put in the work. But after the mountain high of a team building retreat, teams collapse back to their habits. It takes intentional Team Development to foster the habits of working well together.

Most organizations stop at the first or second. The ones that keep going are the ones where you and your team are working crazy hours putting on an event and start to chant "Achievers® assemble" as their own rallying cry to encourage one another and make it happen. True story.

That's what I help teams build.

If you're planning a CliftonStrengths® or team development workshop this year, reach out and let's talk about what that could look like for your team. You can connect with me here on the site or find me on LinkedIn.

Still awkward, but developing,
Reuben

P.S. If you're getting ready to facilitate your first CliftonStrengths® workshop, I put together a free facilitator checklist to help you prepare. It covers everything from before you open the session to how you close it. Grab this checklist for free here.

This is Part 4 of a 4-part series. Read the full series here:

Part 1: Team Bonding Has a Ceiling

Part 2: Why I keep getting invited to team dinners

Part 3: The Ceiling of Team Building 

Part 4: What Team Development Actually Looks Like (you are here)

Still awkward, but developing:
Reuben

P.S. If your team has done the trip, the retreat, the workshop, and you're still hitting the same walls, let's talk. That's exactly the gap a CliftonStrengths® or team development workshop is designed to help with. You can reach me here on the site or find me on LinkedIn.

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