a powerful personality without a solid identity

In 1799, British poet Samuel Coleridge was transfixed by an immense flock of starlings that swept across the sky and hurriedly journaled his thoughts. Coleridge’s remarks later inspired biographer Richard Holmes to describe the flock as “a powerful personality without solid identity.”

Contemporary poet David Whyte called this description a perfect illustration of the shifting, starling-like nature of the corporate workplace. Does your culture have an identity that’s dying to shift? Learn more.

Team Effectiveness & Transformation

Every team is constantly evolving. During this dynamic ebb and flow, team members are making sense of one another’s communication styles, adapting to the leader’s approach, trying to gain clarity on the vision and their role in achieving it, and figuring out how to be and do their best work.

What sustains a team’s effectiveness in the midst of constant change is a commitment to building a strong container. Ask any high-performing team what makes them successful and a strong container will always be on the list.

How Do You Know You’re Ready to Build a Container and What’s Involved?

Building and maintaining a strong container starts with the leader and requires a shared commitment to “stay with it.” Team Effectiveness Journeys are created to meet your group where it is and, from that starting point, build or strengthen your container. The Journey requires a minimum of six monthly meetings or gatherings. Your Team Journeys are custom-designed in partnership with the leader based on existing trust levels and desired outcomes.

Embarking on a Team Effectiveness Journey means that the leader is committed and willing to “design for the emerging future.” Designing for the emerging future is a systems-thinking-design technique that requires a different way of listening to your team and the system where it exists. Team Journeys are not off-the-shelf products or one-size-fits-all approaches for the group.

Each team and each system is unique and requires an evolving design process that allows reflection time after each session and right before the next session to “sense into” what wants to emerge next. We make no assumptions thirty days in advance of what a team will need. We listen and sense into how the team is evolving and design sessions to help increase trust and truth, to build skills around collaboration and communication, and to increase self-awareness and collective intelligence.

The Essential Leader Checklist for Establishing a Strong Container

Before you launch a Team Effectiveness Journey with us, it’s essential that you consider the following commitments and content exploration so you can experience the best results.

The leader commits to scheduling six sessions (each is a half-day minimum) and doesn’t reschedule or cancel due to current circumstances (unless, of course, there is an emergency). The leader believes that the “conversation is the work” and makes these a priority.
The leader “leads from the front” and prioritizes the Journey sessions as the most important commitment the team and its members have.
The leader grows and learns as much as the team and is not separate (physically, mentally, or emotionally) from the group during the process. A team’s ability to grow is capped by the limitations and capacity of the leader’s ability to grow.
The leader models humility and vulnerability during any session.
The leader avoids any distractions during the session (e.g., phone, text, email, etc.) and expects the same from the team.
The team leader is willing and committed to increasing genuine dialogue skills with the team, including the ability to move past the “polite” stage of communicating and into healthy conflict so creative ideas flow and collective intelligence is obtained.
The team leader is open to having at least a few meetings in creative spaces like museums (where we can access great art) or nature (where we can hike and clear our heads).
The team leader considers starting every Team Journey with the Living and Leading on Purpose Journey.

The Team Leader Explores Content Like:

self-awareness and self-regulation
increasing emotional and social intelligence
mindfulness practices to build inner stillness
clarity and self-regulation skills
dialogue and how to have creative and difficult conversations
creating a moonshot for the team and organization function
understanding the current identity of the team, what it’s dying to shift to, what it’s dying to drop and not identify with anymore
systems-thinking skills that increase how we listen to ourselves, others, and the system (including our communities) differently and more acutely

Level-Two Team Journeys – The Plus-One Process

Once a team has an established a strong container and the entire team feels more in flow, psychologically safe, and cohesive, it’s time to bring in the “plus ones.”

Bringing the direct reports of the leadership team or the Extended Leadership Team (ELT) accelerates clarity and cohesion throughout the organization. It’s time for this group to feel the same level of trust and cohesion with each other that the leadership team experiences.

The Plus-One Process consists of a shared Journey and allows the ELT to witness the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) acting with cohesion, handling conflict skillfully with one another, modeling vulnerability and transparency, and creating increased psychological safety and trust throughout the entire organization. As the ELT observes the SLT’s positive behaviors and team effectiveness in real time, they begin to shift their own behaviors and outlooks and a unified field of leadership is created.

Codesigned for Your Team

There are a variety of ways we can map your Plus-One Process. The Journey is codesigned with your senior leadership team, and here are some common options:

Monthly or Quarterly SLT and ELT Meetings – These are two-hour sessions where the team learns and develops together, trust is built between the levels, and dialogues are designed and facilitated to create unique learning and bonding experiences that don’t happen anywhere else in their given month. These meetings can be used to solve the company’s biggest challenges to develop and grow together or to have dialogues that are timely and have meaning.
ELT-Only Journeys – These are custom-designed Journeys for the ELT to develop team effectiveness and leadership skills and build their own container. As trust levels increase among all ELT members across the organization, clarity and cohesion increase and results are a natural outcome.
POD Journeys – PODS are self-facilitated conversations using a predesigned facilitator guide (with timings, talking points, and questions to ask—no facilitation skills required!). PODS meet once a month for ninety days to share dialogue and explore topics like leadership, creativity, storytelling, purpose, values, facing fears, building resilience, and systems thinking—and the list goes on.
PODs are custom-designed for each client, so they can be about anything! PODS are created with a mix of SLT and ELT members, and “POD days” are calendared so all POD conversations happen at the same time. POD Journeys require a commitment from the SLT to show up and be present every month and a commitment to clear the team members’ calendars to make the Journeys a priority and easy to attend. POD Journeys are one of the fastest ways to build trust and strong containers.

The Soul Purpose Toolkit

The Team Effectiveness Journey that we design especially for you represents years in training, certifications, and a lifelong focus on personal development in teams and as individuals. Here are a few of the tools, practices, and concepts we leverage on your behalf:

Proprietary curriculum from the Living a Life on Purpose program
Systems-thinking approach from MIT and the Presencing Institute
Team-effectiveness skills
Emotional intelligence (EQ)
Mindfulness practices and attention-building skills from the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute
Neuroscience and data applications
Shifting identities in teams and organizations (The Flame model)
Insights Discovery®: a Jungian typology assessment for teams and individuals
Communication and dialogue skills (how to listen four different ways)
Conflict and difficult conversation skills
Partnership with nature and nature immersion
Creative gathering spaces that hold safety, imagination, and inclusion
Gratitude practices and habits
Living and leading with discernment and intentionality
Somatic intelligence (body signal awareness and its effect on our health and emotions)
Yoga and martial arts for breathing techniques and stress management