Maynard Leigh Associates
 Ace Teams Tips

Supportive Relationships

• Supporting behaviour

• Sharing

• Trust

• Expression of feelings

• Respect for the individual

Making It Happen

• Supportive behaviour: in meetings ask each person who speaks to paraphrase what the last person just said. Often we are so busy thinking about what we want to say that we don't listen. The 'paraphrase' game is a useful tool to get people to listen better.

• Sharing: Encourage the deepening of relationships by practising sharing more personal experiences. For example, invite team members to play a favourite piece of music, or present a piece of artwork, or describe a favourite book.

• Trust: Build trust deliberately and systematically; don't assume it will somehow just happen. Explore the issue of trust by asking the team to debate it and identify what might get in the way of it developing further.

• When people make public commitments to take action in some way, make sure they stick to them or explain to colleagues why they can't.

• Expression of feelings: Adopt a working rule about voicing resentments. If something occurs that you don't like it, bring it to the group by the next meeting, or within one week or a month. If by the agreed time you haven't voiced it, then you're obliged to forget it and not harbour it'as a grudge.

• People have to know it's safe to admit both resentments and more positive feelings in public. Start meetings with space to air feelings-both positive and negative.

• Respect for the individual: Turn this into a reality by adopting simple team ground rules, such as good listening habits, when it's not acceptable to interrupt someone busy at their desk, and how people talk to each other, even when they are angry.

• Make sure the team leader models respect for people by treating each person as valued and worth listening to.

• Ask the whole team to become accountable for monitoring the respect issue on a daily basis and provide a mechanism for people to raise objections and handle disagreements.

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