TeamBuilding Programs

"Houston, we have a problem." When astronaut Jim Lovell uttered those words, chances of a safe return to earth by Apollo 13 crew were almost non-existent. Yet, less than four days later they were back, safe and sound – and an apparent disaster was transformed into triumph.

How was this life-saving miracle achieved? In a word – TEAMWORK. Extraordinary teamwork between the Apollo 13 astronauts and mission control in Houston. And the vital force behind it? Synergy.

"Synergy, simply defined, means that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  It means that the relationship which the parts have to each other is a part in and of itself.  It is not only a part, but the most catalytic, the most empowering, the most unifying, and the most exciting part.  One plus one equals three or more."

Imagine synergy as the blending of individual talents within an orchestra to produce a unified sound that far exceeds the capability of each musician. A great conductor can show each musician how to look within and find even more potential. Like conductors, managers and leaders who understand synergy will guide their teams to achieve Peak Performance and reach their highest potential.

Synergy is not an accident – it can be orchestrated.  Orchestrating synergy requires commitment by the members of the team to the following key components: commitment to a shared vision, a core set of values, collaboration, consensus, communication and trust.  All must be present to achieve team synergy. BreakThroughs, Inc. Team "Greatness" Programs were designed to provide managers with the knowledge, the skills, and the tools to orchestrate success and build team synergy.

Assessment

Benchmarking Competencies & Measuring Results

BreakThroughs, Inc. offers a series of assessment tools that not only examine core competencies necessary for success, but also examine the way people think, behave and apply skills in the work environment. Assessments identify individual strengths and reveal areas for improvement. They help shape each Achieving Team "Greatness" Program and identify solutions that will produce the greatest results.

Several assessment tools are utilized by BreakThroughs, Inc. to help each participant gain maximum benefit from their training experience. These tools help the participant to better understand their own very unique strengths as well as those areas in need of development. Once the program is completed each participant is reassessed to measure the impact of how they applied what they learned to positively improve performance and impact bottom line results.

Dynamics of TeamBuilding

Understanding Teams & Teamwork

Teamwork works! That's the lesson being learned throughout corporate America, in organizations ranging from the military to nonprofit agencies to Fortune 500 companies. Teamwork works because it allows team members to take their job more seriously. It gives them a sense of control over their lives. It fosters commitment by getting them involved in problem solving, decision making, goal setting, action planning and other job related activities.

Most managers understand the importance of teams and teamwork but many have difficulty understanding the Dynamics of Teambuilding – how to harness the energy and how to utilize the knowledge, skills and abilities of individual team members most effectively.

The most successful managers are those who have mastered the Dynamics of Teambuilding and as a result have improved the performance and increased the productivity and profitability of their teams.

Building High Performance Team Culture

Leaving A Lasting Legacy

In today's super-competitive and fast-paced business environment, every organization and each team, needs to create a high performance culture where people are motivated and inspired to perform at higher levels than ever before if they are to attain sustainable success.

Recent research shows that financially stronger companies – defined as those with an ROI of 30 percent or higher – are also strong in key, measurable competencies of a high performance team culture. On the other hand, financially weaker companies – those with an ROI of 9 percent or lower – score low on those same measurements of the competencies necessary to create a high performance team culture.

A high performance team culture reinforces the mission, vision statement, and values of the organization by providing a strategic alignment. Alignment leads to improved performance, productivity, and bottom-line results.

High Performance Team Cultures within successful organizations are those that have the following seven interwoven core competencies: Leadership, Coaching, Teamwork, Commitment, Clear Roles & Expectations, Communication and Trust.

Leading Teams

Manager As Leader: How to Motivate, Inspire and Align People to Achieve Extraordinary Results

What separates leaders from managers? A leader inspires and motivates people to achieve seemingly impossible goals while a manager completes tasks and makes sure the system works. A leader has vision and a powerful sense of mission and purpose.

Understanding the difference between leading and managing is key to understanding the difference between winning and losing in today's globally competitive marketplace. Because there are many similar products and services offered, a characteristic often separating one company from another is the quality of its people, which is directly affected by the quality of its leadership.

Managing Change

Developing Skills and Mindsets

The one constant in business is change... new technology, new products, new services, downsizing, mergers, acquisition, restructuring, revamping corporate policies.

Whatever the kinds of change that managers and their people encounter, there are certain patterns of responses that occur and re-occur. Managers and their people can either be controlled by and reactive to changes in their environment or be proactive and manage the change process to maximize benefits and reduce negative impacts.

Being proactive means clearly explaining the reasons for change, having a clear strategy, direction and vision as well as respecting the viewpoints of their people and involving them in the change process.

In today's fast paced, complex, and competitive business environment, the companies that will prosper and achieve success are those that can identify change, manage the impact, and respond productively.

DISC Personality Style Profile

Working Together With Style

What makes people act and communicate as they do? What makes one person focus on facts while another focuses on the big picture? What makes one person embrace teamwork while another person prefers to work alone? What makes one person act quickly while another person takes time to analyze the situation?

Understanding different personality styles and how to communicate more effectively with them is at the core of becoming an effective coach, team player and individual contributor.

If we could recommend one foundational program for managers and teams to complete, this would be it! The profile provides a starting point for people to gain insight into themselves and build productive business relationships.

Communicating for Results

Building Effective Team Communication Skills

Having effective team communication skills is a crucial requirement for both managers and team members alike. It allows members of a team to strengthen relationships, build trust, understand team goals, share ideas easily and create team synergy. Conversely, poor, unclear or non-specific communication in a team leads to dysfunction, low morale, poor performance and costly mistakes.

The foundation of effective communication skills is not just being heard but also involves an understanding of where other people are coming from. Unfortunately, there are so many people who fall victim to poor habits like interrupting, dominating the conversation and not paying attention often without even realizing it. These all act as barriers to communication, making it difficult to understand others and to be understood in turn. In essence, rather than talk with each other, we talk at each other.

Communication involves more than just talking and listening; it's a matter of knowing how to send a clear and concise message to others, being able to read others and empathize, being comfortable expressing one's emotions, and communicating in an assertive manner when necessary.

The last facet of communication, and arguably the most important, is active listening, which involves both mental and physical attentiveness (e.g. eye contact, verbal cues, asking questions, etc.). Active listening is a person's willingness and ability to hear and understand. At its core, active listening is a state of mind that involves paying full and careful attention to the other person, avoiding premature judgment, reflecting, understanding, clarifying information, summarizing, and sharing. People who practice active listening are able to draw out more information and more meaningful information during a conversation.

Conflict Management

Strategies To Skillfully Manage Conflict

Conflict is an inescapable part of our daily lives, an inevitable result of an ever changing, highly competitive business world. Each of us perceives conflict differently, both in our personal relationships and our business interactions. Some people welcome it, while others find conflict uncomfortable and avoid it.

Unfortunately, avoiding un-managed conflict can produce stress, lower morale, damage relationships, teamwork and decrease productivity. Therefore, the first step toward becoming more effective at resolving conflict is to understand that skillfully managed conflict can be positive and healthy. It can promote cooperation, produce harmony, strengthen relationships and teamwork. It can also be used as a tool to coach people, improve performance, and increase productivity.

Experiential Learning Activities

"What man hears, he may doubt;
what he sees, he may possibly doubt,
but what he does/experiences,
he cannot doubt".
- Seaman A. Knapp

At BreakThroughs, Inc. we create programs and exercises that are custom designed to communicate learning objectives in unique ways. We have discovered that people learn best when they enjoy the process of learning and when they feel that the information is relevant to them. Each exercise is designed to reinforce key learning points in a fresh, dynamic way. In every case, exercises are built around your company's needs and aligned with your objectives.

Reinforcement & Follow Up

Profiting From an Investment in Training

The most commonly recognized strategy to improve performance and increase productivity is training.

Training consists of instructional experiences designed to develop new skills and knowledge that are expected to be applied immediately upon (or within a short time after) return to the job.

Do organizations get full value for their investments in training? That is, is the training they pay for fully transferred to the job? This brings us to a very important definition.

Transfer of training is the effective and continuing application, by managers to their jobs, of the knowledge and skills gained in the training.

This means that managers apply all they learned in training to their jobs, at least as well as they could demonstrate those skills at the end of the training program. Full transfer of training also means that with practice on the job, the level of skill with which that learning is applied will increase beyond the level demonstrated at the end of the training program.

The objective of Reinforcement & Follow-Up is to help and support managers to effectively apply to the job the knowledge and skills learned and to demonstrate how continuous application will positively impact bottom line results.