Delivery Matters

Stories behind workshop plans,
sticky notes and markers.

Tag: Growth and development

How to build an internal facilitation community of practice

A facilitation Community of Practice (CoP) is a structured group of facilitators, learning designers, and practitioners within an organization who meet regularly to exchange knowledge, develop shared standards, and build collective facilitation capability. Sometimes called a facilitation hub or facilitation champions group, it sits at the heart of Level 2 in the Facilitation Maturity Model: the point at which an organization moves from isolated individual practice toward a connected, scalable facilitation function. This post covers all you need to build your own. Here is a story about what can happen when facilitation is thoughtfully introduced within an organization, incorporating both top-down and bottom-up elements. In 2023, a team of external…

43 communication games for teams

Effective communication is a vital aspect of how we work with others. When communication is open, honest, and effective, our working relationships are richer and more satisfying. When this breaks down, it can create friction, misunderstandings, and disconnection - leading to an ultimately unproductive workplace. In this guide, you'll find communication games and exercises designed to improve and teach communication skills to your team. Try running these activities with any group that wants to communicate more effectively, be better listeners and improve their interpersonal relationships. Why are communication skills important at work? Effective communication is a vital aspect of any high-performing team. With good workplace communication, teams can more effectively…

How to build a strong team culture in eight steps

Building a team culture that helps everyone in your organization feel valued and empowered to do their best work should be a priority for every organization. Without a healthy company culture, you can see toxic behavior, reduced productivity, and even lose members of the team! But how can you and your team co-create an organizational culture you can be proud of and that makes your team want to come into work every day? In this article, we’ll explore why team culture is important and discuss eight ways you can start to improve your culture today. Let's dig in! What is team culture? Team culture is a collection of values, behaviors,…

How to improve your collaboration skills and be a better collaborator

Achieving effective collaboration with your colleagues at the workplace can improve the efficiency, happiness, and productivity of your team. However, real collaboration is easier said than done. How many times have you found it tough to work with others or been frustrated by working processes? These are symptoms of poor collaboration skills and it might be time to reconsider how you and your team collaborate and work towards your shared goals. It’s important to note that collaboration has fundamentally changed over time, and it is not as simple as it sounds. You can't make collaboration in the workplace happen overnight. It is a process that often requires open discussions, building…

29 conflict management techniques (that actually resolve issues!)

Bringing a group of passionate, talented individuals together to work on a common goal is the goal of every leader. But even the best teams in the world can disagree! While different perspectives are vital to the success of any business, without effective conflict management, those differences of opinion can fester and breed resentment. Left unresolved, conflict in the workplace can result in a toxic working environment and unhappy staff. As such, conflict management is one of the most necessary skills in a leader’s toolbox. Managing, growing, and developing a productive team is extremely difficult without it! In this post, we’ll explore how your team can approach conflict management productively…

19 Creative Thinking Skills (and How to Use Them!)

In a fast-moving world, being able to find new perspectives and create innovation is an increasingly valuable skill. Creative thinkers are often at the forefront of driving change, solving problems, and developing new ideas. Not only that, but those who bring creative thinking to how they work are often happier, more productive, and resilient too! So you might be asking yourself, how can I develop my creative thinking skills and think more creatively at work? Whether you want to supercharge your interpersonal skills, advance your career or be happier and more satisfied in the work you do, it pays to learn to think more creatively. For many people, creative thinking is…

How to use the 5 stages of team development (and build better teams!)

All groups are composed of individuals with different needs, communication styles, and working practices. When bringing those individuals together and engaging in team development, leaders will need to find ways to help everyone work together effectively and grow as individuals and as a group. Helping a set of people progress from being strangers to becoming a cohesive, well-oiled team can be a tricky process but thankfully there are team development frameworks, activities, and exercises that can help! In this post, we’ll explore Bruce Tuckman's theory of team development while also offering practical advice, actions, and team building activities you can take to help your group grow and work together more…

How to improve your problem solving skills and build effective problem solving strategies

Effective problem solving is all about using the right process and following a plan tailored to the issue at hand. Recognizing your team or organization has an issue isn’t enough to come up with effective problem solving strategies. To truly understand a problem and develop appropriate solutions, you will want to follow a solid process, follow the necessary problem solving steps, and bring all of your problem solving skills to the table. We’ll forst look at what problem solving strategies you can employ with your team when looking for a way to approach the process.We’ll then discuss the problem solving skills you need to be more effective at solving problems, complete…

a speaker explaining a theory to the audience

5 Tips To Engage your Audience During Workshops

Engaging your audience is a tough job. Nowadays, it is even tougher when our capacity for attention is lower than a goldfish’s. The digital noise around us is so high only the extremities get through. Most of us have gotten used to this “new normal”, and we expect so much more from an article, a movie or a brand to get our attention. Likewise, we expect no less from our trainers. The burden of engaging participants during a training event always falls hard on the trainer. It’s not the participants’ responsibility to get engaged immediately, it is the trainer who needs to persuade the audience. Of course, it is always…

3 Ways to Give Effective Feedback Everytime

When was the last time you felt you learned something from feedback on your performance? Or that you got useful, workable suggestions? Or that the feedback was actually more like a conversation than your superior just listing all the things you’ve done wrong? Even when feedback is mostly constructive and positive it can be stressful getting it. ...or you dread it? You are not alone. For instance, in large companies 62% of employees say that they don’t ever see changes occur from feedback they give during reviews. That’s why big companies have been eliminating reports and performance reviews. Some of this feedback frustration could come from a lack of transparency…

Psychological Safety: The key to high-performing teams

What are the ingredients of a perfect team? Do teams perform better if they socialize outside of work? Do individual educational backgrounds affect a team’s success? Do strong-handed managers make teams more effective? These are just some of the questions Google’s researches asked when they embarked upon a journey to find out how to build the perfect team in early 2012. After years of research, it turned out that it doesn't matter if team members are friends or strangers, or if they have a strong hierarchical system or not.The only thing that separated thriving and successful teams from average ones was psychological safety. Until early 2016 no one except researchers…

Group vs team: What’s the difference?

I remember the first time I had to do a workshop for 30 or so bright-eyed students on the subject of teamwork. I had to explain the difference between a group and a team and how to form a group into a team. Up until this particular workshop what I have known about the group concept and the team concept could have been summed up like this: “a bunch of people coming together to do something.” Sure, it is not something you would put on a flipchart and call it a definition right? After some research, I realized I wasn’t entirely wrong.. but I was not right either. There is…

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