Developing Working Agreements

Group Workout

DEVELOPING WORKING AGREEMENTS

Time: 50 minutes

INSTRUCTIONS

1.Review the scenario provided—The A Service Team. This is a description of the team’s last meeting. You will become the A Service Team and hold another meeting, this time it will be facilitated by an outside facilitator. The purpose of this meeting is to develop a new set of working agreements for the team’s meetings.. One of you will take the role of the facilitator.

2.Draw roles. You may also draw the facilitator’s role or you may appoint a member to the facilitator role before drawing team member roles.

3.Allow your facilitator 10 minutes to prepare and for members to consider their roles.

4.Hold your simulated meeting. 30 minutes. Using the Generating and Organizing Ideas Technique, develop a list of agreements to be used by the A Service Team in future meetings. Develop your agreements based on team members’ past behaviors in meetings.

5.Individually complete the Facilitation Feedback Observation Sheet.

6.Share feedback with your facilitator.

The A Service Team

TEAM MEMBERS

Cassie Martin — Team Leader

Cassie has been with the company for 20 years. She was appointed supervisor 10 years ago, and six months ago was appointed Team Leader of this new Customer Focused Team.

Jerry Silby

Jerry has come to the team from Premium Accounting. He has reported to Cassie ever since he joined the company eight years ago.

Kathy Southern

Kathy joined the company two years ago in Customer Service.

Martin Lewis

Martin has been with the company for six years. Before being assigned to this group, he spent four years in Claims.

Carol Foster

Carol has just joined the company and the team within the last week. She is replacing Lee who has resigned. Carol brings some Premium Administration experience from another firm.

The A Service Team has been together for about four months. People are beginning to understand their roles and some of the cross training has been started. The team meets twice a week for one hour. The following is from one of their meetings.

Cassie:I’ve got some things here that I think need discussing.

1.The problem we have with early morning coverage since Lee

left (Lee worked 7:30 to 3:30).

2.The fact that we don’t seem to be living up to some of

the ground rules we spent all that time developing.

Particularly, “We all agree to share the load.”

3.How we’re going to arrange coverage so we can get

away to the next teamwork course.

Does anyone want to add anything else?

Jerry:Ya, I think we’ve got to talk about how we get Team B to keep us in the picture better. We suggested to them that we should co-ordinate our vacation schedules and they went ahead and did theirs on their own. Jean from their team is already booked to be away the weeks I’m going to Europe. I booked that months in advance and can’t change it. There’s not going to be enough people around with accounting experience. They’re doing that kind of stuff to us all the time.

Cassie:That’s a big issue. I’m not sure we’ve got time for it. Besides if the cross training proceeds as we’d planned, we won’t require so much support from outside. But I’m not sure that’s happening. Kathy, I thought you were going to start training on the daily Cash Profit List and Internal Transfers. What happened?

Kathy:You wouldn’t believe this week. I’ve been swamped with loans, transfers, and address changes. We didn’t have time to get together.

Cassie:That seems to come back to my concern about sharing the load. Maybe discussing living up to that ground rule is a good place to start. How are we going to do a better job of sharing the load?

Kathy:I think we’ve just got to be more sensitive to the others’ work load and make a bigger effort to help out.

Martin:That’s great in theory, but we’re already each doing as much as we can. I never get out of here on time. This teamwork stuff is fine in theory, but . . .

Kathy:I thought we all agreed that sharing the load should be a ground rule. Now you’re reneging.

Martin:I’m just being a realist!

Cassie:Okay you two. What about other suggestions for ensuring we share the load?

Jerry:Why don’t we just ask if we need help?

Kathy:But everyone is hesitant to, and also everyone feels they have to say yes!

Jerry:No, we just have to agree it is okay to say no.

Kathy:Well, I don’t think that will work.

Martin:What about having one team member that sort of acts as co-ordinator? We could rotate the role. When we are overloaded, we could tell them and they would check everyone’s load and assign someone.

Cassie:That sounds a little complicated. Carol, we haven’t heard from you.

Carol:Well, where I used to work, we decided we had to let people know when we needed help but, just like Kathy said we were hesitant to. So we had signs made with a cartoon of somebody buried under a pile of paper that said HELP! We just propped it on our desk when we wanted help, and it was kind of a joke so people were comfortable with it.

Martin:(Shaking is head) That doesn’t suit our culture.

Cassie:Well, I tend to agree with Jerry. Everyone must ask for help if they need it. How about trying that?

(No response, but a couple of nods and shrugs.)

Cassie:Okay. Now what about early morning coverage? We’ve had complaints from other teams that since Lee left they are doing all of the early morning coverage.

As you know, when Carol was hired, it was agreed that because of her children’s day-care schedules, that she would work 8:30 to 4:30. So now we’ve got Carol and Jerry 8:30 to 4:30 and Kathy and Martin 9:30 to 5:30. Someone has to move to 7:30 to 3:30. I need a volunteer.

(Silence.)

Cassie:Jerry, how about you?

Jerry:Impossible. I get a lift in from someone.

Cassie:Kathy?

Kathy:(Shakes her head.) I train before work — one of these days I’m going to win the 10K.

Cassie:Martin?

Martin:Nope! Not me.

Cassie:(Sighing.) Well somebody has to. I’m getting too many complaints. Think about it and we’ll talk about it again next week. Now what about coverage so we can get away to the teamwork training next week . . .