Teams
Teams – realising the potential of teamwork in the workplace
Teams don’t just happen – they need to be built!
I love your e-guides.
I’m teaching team leaders and team members … and found your site very enlightening and useful for my classes!!!
Kenneth, United States
Teams matter. On this page you’ll find our teamwork articles, tips, tools, activities and resources on the art and science of leading teams.
Releasing your team’s potential to perform isn’t always easy. So we’re here to help. In these pages we examine what makes teams more effective. We explain teamwork theories, provide helpful tips and tools, and post links to other useful resources.
Teams don’t just happen they need to be built!
We have delivered team leadership and team development to managers and leaders across a wide range of organisations. It means we have gained crucial experience about what works and what helps. It is from this background of good practice that we have now developed a comprehensive set of resources to help leaders get their teams performing.
Many team development models provide nice and neat steps and stages, but say little about the messy context of the workplace where teams are often stuck, or bogged down in problems. We have developed our resources to help you get a new team performing quickly, equip you to take over an existing team and crucially to identify and rectify team problems and revitalise teams that seem stuck.
You’ll find advice, tips, tools and new models you won’t find elsewhere, all designed to really make teamwork work.
Why not take a look at this great range of e-guides before you read on. The complete set is now available at half price! You can find out about the complete teams bundle in our team building activities article.

In addition to general articles and tips, this section contains three, information-packed mini-series:
Read our new book:
Uncommon Leadership: how to build competitive edge by thinking differently

Teams are too important to let them develop by accident so use these pages to help you find out how to build teams that perform. Whatever your position, whether you are:
- Starting a new team,
- Taking over an existing one,
- Feel you have a team that is stuck
- Want to avoid common pitfalls with teams
- Looking for team building activities
- Want to carry out a team health check
- Looking for tools to help you develop your team leadership skills
…you’ll find great, high quality resources in our TEAMS series. You can find out more about the individual guides or the teams bundle offer by following this link: team building activities
Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishment toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.
Andrew Carnegie
Ideas
Define Teamwork – a teamwork definition that works! It’s one thing to define teamwork but perhaps another to define it in a way that works! So...
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Teamwork Theory: Tuckman’s Stages of Group Development Probably the most famous teamwork theory is Bruce Tuckman’s “team stages model”. First developed in 1965, Tuckman’s model is...
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Why is teamwork important? Well it’s one thing to create a team, but quite another to create teamwork. Just as it’s one thing to join a...
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Why is teamworking important? Whether you’re studying the theory of teamwork as part of a degree or other course, or just trying to develop your own knowledge or...
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Workshop facilitation skills are needed to add essential process steps to the content of meetings and workshops. Help your teams gain the most from their knowledge and skills,...
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Structured workshops provide a clear framework within which to facilitate. To structure a workshop effectively the right process needs to be matched to the content you are dealing...
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Good team facilitation starts with being clear about the content of the meeting or workshop: what it is that you are facilitating? Think back over any flawed meetings...
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Using a structured facilitation approach is one way to ensure team meetings are effective – a crucial issue for any manager. Facilitation is often seen as a neutral...
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The STAR Team Model Developing a teamwork concept involves bringing together ideas and insights to inform and shape the concept. Here we explain the ideas which shaped the...
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How do you create the conditions for effective teamwork in the workplace? Good team leadership is about creating the conditions that allow ideas and people to flourish, people...
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Teamwork defined by a strengths based approach might sound unusual but it can provide you with a very useful perspective on how to define teamwork. In our article...
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Too Much “Team” and Not Enough “Work”? Teamwork at work can often fail, not because people don’t get on, but because they get on too well. As teams...
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Poor Teamwork – When Teams Become Exhausting Poor teamwork can be a major drain on energy in any team. It is a particular problem when moving from start-up...
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Lack of Teamwork – Forcing Rather Than Forming a Team Lack of teamwork can be a problem for a number of reasons. In this article we look particularly...
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Team Building Question: How Do You Disband a Team? An overlooked team building question is how you disband a team. Many teams come to their natural end, usually...
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Building and sustaining high-performing teams One of the crucial characteristics of effective teamwork is synergy. When synergy is achieved then a team moves towards high performance. Continuing our...
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Team Building in the Workplace – Building a Performing Team Effective team building in the workplace relies on a counter-intuitive idea – you need to develop the individual....
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Developing a Team Central to most team building concepts is the ability to take a group of individuals with a range of strengths and create a team. This...
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Taking over an Existing Team Here we outline some teamwork tips for taking over an existing team, or reforming a team. In many cases team leaders will not...
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How to Start-up a Team One of the most important team building techniques is that of starting up a team. The first question to ask yourself is what...
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Understanding the stages of team development is essential for any manager trying to build an effective team. Recognising that teams need different things at different phases of their...
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What is teamwork? That’s a good question and there are many ways to answer it! We offered a couple of suggestions in our article: define teamwork, beginning with...
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Teamwork Theories: the STAR Team Model There are numerous teamwork theories all with features to commend them, but how do you decide which might help in getting teams...
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