Diagnostics Can Fix It

Given the time and money spent assembling teams in the first place, it is vital that you ‘fix’ them as quickly and effectively as possible.

Thomas’ Diagnostic tools are a means to understand exactly what issues are currently affecting your team and preventing them from reaching their objectives. Even the best teams face issues and challenges that need to be addressed if they are to move forward to achieve even more ambitious goals. A Diagnostic is a one day workshop where a team can openly and honestly address the issues they face. The day enables people to express their views in a non-confrontational and supportive environment.

Problems can only begin to be resolved when people develop a much greater level of self awareness - understanding and appreciating the way someone prefers to behave at work means you can work with them more effectively.

A diagnostic will:

• Identify ideal and current team culture
• Deliver a clear view of the problem areas
• Focus and commit the team to their challenges
• Present a full diagnosis of strengths and limitations.

The Thomas Diagnostic shows a team where they need to be and the areas they need to focus on to achieve their goals.

Management Diagnostic

Members of a management team need to be able to relate to each other, build commitment and, crucially, achieve consensus. To gain commitment people need to modify their behaviour to complement those of their team members.

For example, the board of a company must be comprised of people who will drive the business forward but it also needs a representation of less driving and more detailed focused characteristics to ensure it is not totally disengaged from the operation of the business. Yet, it is precisely these different behavioural elements, combined with a lack of understanding of what each brings to the board, which can cause tension.

The Management Diagnostic is a one day workshop which begins by brainstorming the different issues and challenges faced by the group at the moment. From this we drill down to identify the key issues from which an action plan can be formulated. The diagnostic also asks the team to consider the culture required by and for the management so that shared values can be decided and agreed upon.

Team Diagnostic

Teams can sometimes hit a glass ceiling. Discussion and debate can turn into a ‘blame game’ with people pointing fingers at the perceived shortcomings of others. One factor that differentiates ‘dream teams’ from ones that don’t work is a strong platform of understanding. Part of understanding is knowing that differences are not good or bad, better or worse. Each member needs to be aware of their own limitations, that there are people on the team who can do things better than themselves. People need to cover the bases they are good at and concede to others where they are better.

Teams fail because of mismatched needs, unresolved conflict, personality clashes and lack of trust. All these can be addressed through understanding and recognising how each person in the team behaves and responds in different situations.

A Team Diagnostic is a one day workshop, beginning with a brainstorm exercise which gets the participants to think about the sort of problems and challenges they face as a team. Participants are then asked to focus on what prevents them from being a high performance team, what team building issues they face and what their existing team culture is. Only by understanding what their actual team profile is can the team plot a path to achieving their ideal team profile.

Sales Diagnostic

The Sales Diagnostic is a one day workshop that helps sales teams identify factors that are preventing them from being as successful as they could be. There is a facilitated session that gets participants to focus on the major problem of how to increase sales.

Each member of the team is profiled using the PPA. The results are plotted on a chart that compares the actual sales culture of the team, the HJA requirements of that particular sales role and the agreed ideal sales culture.

The session then goes on to examine the observable behaviours of different individuals and how to modify behaviour accordingly.