Dare to DREAM 1

Running Head: DARE TO DREAM

Dare to DREAM: Co-designing the Learning Team at Land and Properties

Robin Levesque

Royal Roads University, Victoria, BC

December 6, 2009

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Abstract

In November 2008, the City of Medicine Hat's Land and Properties Department

welcomed a new team leader, me. We made a lot of progress this past year as the team

shifted from a ‘command and control’ culture to collaborative leadership. This paper

examines some of the techniques used as well as the results. The focus of the paper is on

collaboration and trust between team members using a modified appreciative inquiry

framework I call the DREAM Master Key: discovering the team; reaching for the stars;

engaging the team in dialogue; achieving results; and monitoring and celebrating success.

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“There are no great companies, only great teams” (Buckingham, 2007, p. 2). This

statement challenges conventional wisdom: that leadership starts at the top of an

organization and moves partway down the hierarchal structure to around the mid-

manager’s level. Instead, it suggests that great teams contribute to organizational success

from the bottom up. The result is leadership at every level, an idea that several prominent

leadership authors have been promoting in the past three decades (Senge, 2006; Kouzes

& Posner, 2007; Covey, 2004).

In November 2008, I joined the City of Medicine Hat as the new workgroup

leader, Manager of Land and Properties. My leadership challenge was to facilitate the co-

creation of a “learning team” (Senge, 2006, pp. 216-257). This paper examines some of

the techniques used as well as the results. The focus of the paper is on collaboration and

trust between team members using a modified appreciative inquiry framework, including

discovering the team, reaching for the stars, engaging the team in dialogue, achieving

results, and monitoring and celebrating success: what I call the DREAM Master Key.

Land and Properties is a City of Medicine Hat department that uses the City’s

land bank to develop and market land for residential, commercial and industrial uses. The

department sells anywhere from $4M to $30M of real estate per year depending on

demand and market conditions. Land and Properties also delivers services as an internal

consultant to other City departments: e.g., acquisition of land needed for municipal

purposes, the disposal of land no longer required for municipal purposes, and the

identification of affordable housing sites. The department has four full-time employees

reporting directly to the manager. The manager reports to the Commissioner of Corporate

Services, one of three commissioners that report to the Chief Administrative Officer.

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The City of Medicine Hat is an organization that is incorporated under the

Province of Alberta’s Municipal Government Act and employs some 900 full-time

employees in addition to part-time and seasonal employees. Its portfolio is more diverse

compared to most other municipalities because the City owns its own natural gas reserves

and most of the developable land within City limits.

Discovering the Team

Discovering the team as the first step is about understanding oneself, one’s fellow

teammates and the team’s relationships with the rest of its organization and communities.

Prior to November 2008, the team had been led by a set of values aligned with the

prevailing thirty-year-old culture of ‘command and control’ leadership. Employees were

asked to identify their weaknesses and work on those. Little feedback was provided. One

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team member put it this way. In response to a request for feedback, he was told “you will

know if you are doing something wrong”. Therefore, “What dignity the jobs offer is

sometimes extracted by the unnecessary exercise of power by the jobholder over

members of the community being served, leading a widening gulf between the two

parties” (Hesskett, 1998, p. 140).

Today’s fast paced, global economy made up of diverse workforces and

customers require a different leadership model. “In the last three decades many firms

were able to move to customer-focused, project based organizations because they had

discovered teams – the ideal social structure to which managers can assign project

responsibility” (Wenger, McDermott & Synder, 2002, p. 11) “The new paradigm …

demands that leaders develop some novel core values and skill … place greater value on

listening than on talking. Leaders will learn to value cooperation more than competition:

talent more than title; teamwork, more than individual effort and glory” (Clawson, 2003,

p. 19).

My leadership style is better characterized as collaborative leadership, defined as

the “art of pulling people together from [a team,] different units or organizations to

accomplish a task that none of them could accomplish – at all or as well – individually”

(Linden, 2003, p. 42). I also believe in building a team on its strengths and managing

around weaknesses (Buckingham & Clifton, 2001, p. 26).

The focus of the first 90 days on the job was to make a conscious effort to first

discover the team, the business and the organization before making any drastic changes.

In essence, it was important for team members to suspend assumptions and experience a

time of “presencing” before making and implementing a plan (Senge, Scharmer,

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Jaworski & Flowers, 2004; Sharmer, 2009). Bob Chartier, a learning organization

practitioner with the Government of Canada, now turning consultant, stresses that leaders

must consider relationship, possibility and action in that specific order. “Action without

relationship has no commitment. Action with no possibility has no imagination”

(personal communication, June 25, 2008).

The foundation of healthy working relationships is trust. “To understand trust is to

be able to build trust into our everyday practices and relationships, and to develop

institutions in which such practices are not only possible but mandatory” (Solomon &

Flores, 2001, p. 3). Trust is about “keeping promises, following through on one’s offers,

making good on one’s commitment” (p. 11). Kouzes and Posner call it honesty

exemplified by the practice of modelling (2007, pp. 45-98) and the acronym

DWYSYWD: “do what you say you will do” (2003, p. 47). Trust is the “social glue”

(Fukuyama) or “social lubricant” (Spreitzer and Mishra) (as quoted in Atkinson and

Butcher, 2003, p. 282).

Several tools were compiled to co-create an effective team strategy, its

cornerstone being the strengths interview (see Appendix “A”) from First Break all the

Rules (Buckingham & Coffman, 1999, p. 225) and its 12 questions (p. 28). These

interviews were conducted at the beginning of January with each employee.

Coincidently, the team members had responded to similar questions posed in

‘communication’ surveys in 2005 and 2008. Four of the questions were nearly identical

to the 12 questions (see Appendix “B” and “D”).

Each team member also completed the Clifton StrengthsFinder profile from the

book Now, Discover Your Strengths. This tool provides the users with their top five

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strength themes. There are 34 themes in all. Given the multiple profile possibilities, it is

my opinion that this tool expands profiling beyond tools like the Meyers Briggs Type

Indicator and DISC. By now, it was already apparent that the team was learning a new

vocabulary and that team culture was about to shift. Team members were excited to learn

something new about themselves and sharing this new information with their other team-

mates including their new manager.

On January 15, the intact team participated in a full-day offsite inspired by the

Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Lencioni, 2002). The session was titled Dare to Grow:

Building on our Strengths and included three facilitated exercises and two presentations.

The structure of the offsite used facilitation practices from Moving Beyond

Icebreakers, (Pollach & Fusoni, 2005) starting with an icebreaker, followed by a

springboard exercise and leading to the actual work at hand.

The icebreaker used was Three Truths and a Lie, where participants are asked to

write down three things about themselves that are true and one that is not. Each

participant reads off his or her statements, and the others try to guess which one is the lie.

This is a very effective technique for small groups of people that want to get to know

each other better.

The presentations focused on team building and strengths. The springboard

exercise used was a dialogue around each team members strength themes using the Team

Top 5 Grid from The Gallup Organization’s resource site (see Appendix “C”). Each

strength theme is featured one by one during the dialogue. Team members that had a

particular theme were asked to read the profile and share some of their own examples.

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Then, they were asked to post their name on the Team Top 5 Grid, which was replicated

on a flip chart.

The ‘heavy lifting’ part of the day was dialogue around shared vision. We used a

facilitation technique called the Interview Matrix from the National Managers’

Community’s Tools for leadership and learning (2002, pp. 70-71). The questions

used were inspired from Jim Collins’ Hedgehog Principle (2005, p. 19): what we are

deeply passionate about, what we can be the best in the world at, and what drives our

resource engine. In addition, we asked how we measure success. Each team member

owned one question and interviewed each other. Then, they each compiled the

responses to their question on a flip chart and reported back to the team for further

dialogue.

Overall, the offsite was a success. A debrief was conducted at the end of the

session. What went well? Team members felt that the ice breaker was a meaningful way

to engage and find out information about fellow team-mates that they did not know. The

strengths presentation along with the Top 5 Team Grid was also well received. The

lunchtime visit by our commissioner provided some valued insight from our executive.

What was tricky? Some thought that there was too much lecture time in the first

half of the day, in particular, the presentation on teams. Most exercises took more time

than planned. Some technical issues with the set-up surfaced including a poor quality

projector for viewing the presentations.

What would we do differently? Such offsites should last two days to provide more

time to deep dive into issues. We should reduce lecture time to a minimum and allow

more time for team members to engage in dialogue.

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The next step in the team building strategy was to meet with each team member to

talk about personal goals and objectives. Buckingham and Coffman advise against the

“performance review”. Instead, they promote linking back to the strengths interview via a

“performance planning review” (1999, p. 226). The City’s primary tool for collaborating

between a supervisor and a direct report is the Achievement Planner, which is a template

similar to what other organizations are using for performance and learning plans. Some of

Buckingham and Coffman’s advice was incorporated into the Achievement Planner

meetings, in particular, building on strengths and managing around weaknesses. Special

emphasis was placed on the notion that this was each individual’s plan. The manager was

not to put pen to their paper and tell them what to do. I slipped up once on this

commitment, and was promptly reminded.

Reaching for the Stars

Building a shared vision as promoted by many leadership authors (Senge, 2006;

Kouzes & Posner, 2007; Covey, 2004) is an important part of team development. It was

hoped that team visioning would be a part of the offsite in January. We ran out of time to

make this a meaningful dialogue. Therefore, this conversation was continued at a session

hosted onsite. What became apparent was that the team members shared a common

purpose: to add value to everything they do. As the dialogue progressed, a vision

statement was crafted after several iterations: We are a learning team that adds value by

combining and sharing our strengths to build better communities.

The approach that the team used to further elaborate on the team vision statement

was the team charter, which is founded in project management as well as Teaming by

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Design (McIntosh-Fletcher, 1996). The team charter includes vision, shared values,

communication objectives as well as strength themes and ‘rules of engagement’.

The team charter is the people side of the equation shown in the following figure.

In an effort to push leadership down the team hierarchy each member’s strength

themes were plotted in the following tool that I developed based on the four-column table

in Strengths Based Leadership (Rath & Conchie, 2008, p. 24).

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Engaging the Team in Dialogue

Team meetings as the team matured were based on Lencioni’s Death by Meeting

(2004). At first, meetings were set for every two weeks as an information meeting based

on the events taking place at Council, also known as cascading meetings. Decisions are

made at Council and the information is passed on to the various departments: first from

the Commissioner, who is getting the information first hand to his or her next line of

command, usually general managers or the equivalent, who then passes on the

information as he or she sees fit. In addition to these weekly meetings with no agenda, the

team holds strategic meetings from time to time to deal with one strategic issue at a time.

Quarterly team learning sessions are scheduled to facilitate “practice fields” (Senge,

2006, pp. 242-244) for team learning. ‘Vegas rules’ are enforced for each team meeting:

• We are equals here: titles are left at the door to encourage true dialogue.

• Shut off cell phones: be present.

• Create a safe environment: this is a safe place to practice.

• What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas: respect confidentiality.

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As the team further evolved, the need to build a common language became

evident. Building on the first offsite that focused on strengths, the intact team participated

in a three-day project management workshop, a one-day DISC session and a two-day

negotiation workshop. Prior to November 2008, this type of intact team learning

opportunity was never allowed. Someone had to stay behind. Now, no one gets left

behind, and intact team learning has become a staple in our team development.

Achieving Results

Land and Properties in action now looks different than it did one year ago. First,

no one gets left behind for intact team learning opportunities.

Second, it is now common practice to send only one representative to meetings

with other departments because the team feels confident that our interests are well

represented by each team member. Through collaboration, we have learned to trust in

each others’ abilities.

Third, quarterly reviews using the Achievement Planner is the new standard. Prior

to this year, team members had this opportunity once a year.

Fourth, decision making is shared amongst the team. Escalation of issues is dealt

within the team charter, however, there has rarely been any need to escalate decision

making beyond the team.

Fifth, the team members are allowed to manage up as well as being led from the

top down. “The goal of managing up is to develop a pattern of interactions between your

boss and you that delivers the best possible results for your organization (and by

extension, for each of you)” (Simpson, 2002, p. 3). Two of the team members

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demonstrated this important skill by approaching me and explaining why expediency was

important for decision items to be reviewed and approved.

Finally, the team is now progressing from the people side of the operation to co-

designing a strategic plan to deal with the business side of our activities.

Monitoring and Celebrating Success

Regular opportunities to celebrate successes is built into the regular contact team

members have. ‘Staff appreciation’ lunches are held, and the team members are

organizing its first Christmas dinner together. We see our quarterly offsite, be it a

strategic session or team learning opportunities, as a chance to celebrate team learning.

Our next strategic offsite is planned for January of 2010 and its focus is on

celebrating team learning. What have we learned about ourselves, each other and the

team over the past year? How do we build on this success and move forward?

The ‘proof is in the pudding’: survey results from December of 2009 based on

First Break all the Rules show some impressive results on the people side of the equation

(see Appendix “D”). Buckingham and Clifton group these 12 questions into five

subcategories:

• Questions 1 and 2 "Base Camp": what do I get?

• Questions 3 to 6 "Camp 1": what do I give?

• Questions 7 to 9 "Camp 2": do I belong here?

• Questions 10 to 12 "Camp 3": how can we all grow?

Reaching the summit is answering all twelve questions in the positive. So, how is

Land and Properties doing after a year of co-creating a learning team? Base camp results

have experienced a slight improvement from the 2008 results but are still lower than the

2005 results. This surprised me because the authors call this “base camp” for a reason.

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They believe that this is the starting point for effective teams. We only showed modest

improvement and still have a ways to go.

Results in Camp 1, what I give, showed impressive results. Interestingly, there is

no data from previous surveys to compare to. There appears to be some alignment of

strengths to tasks work to be done, as one team member responded that he or she did not

have the opportunity to do what he or she does best every day.

Results in Camp 2 were mixed: I belong here. Two questions show very strong

results, however, it appears that we are still struggling with the meaning of our

organization’s vision and if what we do matters.

Results in Camp 3, how we can all grow, were most impressive except for one. I

have a best friend at work scored below the 60th percentile. Could it be that every

member of the Land and Properties team has a different definition for ‘best friend’?

Next Steps

The next step for the Land and Properties team is to co-create the business

strategy. Already, some key issues are becoming clear: customer relationships, citizen

engagement, and sustainability.

Perhaps customer relationship management (CRM) has some answers to “the real

question [which] is what can be done to improve the customer-relating capability” (Day,

2002, p. 7). What does this look like for Land and Properties?

“The future of governance is partnership and shared responsibility” (Armstrong

& Lenihan, 1999, p. 4). How does Land and Properties engage the citizens of Medicine

Hat in its future development and marketing activities?

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As for sustainability, Land and Properties has a dream of being one of the

inspiring stories in such books as The Necessary Revolution (Senge, Smith, Kruschwitz,

Laur & Schley, 2008).

Conclusion

“An effective organizational culture will tolerate only those employees who show

initiative, accountability, team spirit [emphasis added], and customer focus” (The

Conference Board of Canada, 2002, p. 22).

Team leadership makes a difference on team morale. After all, “people don’t

leave their organizations, they leave their manager” (Buckingham, 2005). Eventually, it

becomes each team member’s responsibility to demonstrate this team leadership. Co-

creating the team experience has been an effective way for Land and Properties team

members to share this leadership.

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References

Armstrong, J., & Lenihan, D. G. (1999). From controlling to collaborating: When

governments want to be partners: A report on the collaborative partnerships

project. Institute for Public Administration of Canada, New Directions Report

Number 3. Retrieved May 14, 2009, from www.ipac.ca/documents/ND3-Rev.pdf

Atkinson, S. & Butcher, D. (2003). Trust in managerial relationships. Journal of

Managerial Psychology, 18(4), 282-304. Retrieved May 14, 2009, from

https://ezproxy.royalroads.ca/login?url=http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=346

496541&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=4565&RQT=309&VName=PQD

Buckingham, M. (2007). The strengths engagement trackTM: a benchmark study of

sixty-five high performing teams. The Markus Buckingham Company®.

Buckingham, M. & Clifton, D. (2001). Now, Discover Your Strengths. New York:

The Free Press.

Buckingham, M. & Coffman, C. (1999). First break all the rules: what the world's

greatest managers to differently. New York, Simon & Shuster.

Buckingham, M. (Speaker)(2005). The one thing you need to know: about great

managing, great leading, and sustained individual success. New York: Simon

& Shuster Audio.

Clawson, J. G. (2003). The changing context of leadership. In Level three

leadership: Getting below the surface (2nd ed., pp. 8-23). Upper Saddle

River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Collins, J. (2005). Good to great and the social sectors. A monograph to accompany

Good to Great.

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Covey, S. R. (2004). The 8th habit: from effectiveness to greatness. New York:

Simon & Schuster.

Day, G. (2002). Winning the competition for customer relationships. Retrieved May 14,

2009, from

http://marketing.wharton.upenn.edu/ideas/pdf/Day/winning_the_competition_200

2.pdf.

DISC is a group of psychological inventories developed by John Geier and others

and based on the 1928 work of psychologist William Moulton Marston and

Michael Laudrup and the original behaviouralist Walter V. Clarke and others.

Heskett, J. L. (1998). Managing for results in the community of the future. In F.

Hesselbein, M. Goldsmith, R. Beckhard, & R. Schubert (Eds.), The community of

the future (pp. 139-153). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Kouzes, J. M. & Posner, B. Z. (2003). Credibility: how leaders gain and lose it, why

people demand it. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Kouzes, J. M. & Posner, B. Z. (2007). The leadership challenge (4th ed.). San

Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Lencioni, P. (2002). The five dysfunctions of a team: a leadership fable. San

Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Lencioni, P. (2004). Death by meeting: a fable about solving the most painful

problem in business. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Linden, R. (2003, Summer). The discipline of collaboration. Leader to Leader, (29),

41–47. Retrieved May 14, 2009, from

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https://ezproxy.royalroads.ca/login?url=http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=

608343391&sid=5&Fmt=2&clientId=4565&RQT=309&VName=PQD

McIntosh-Fletcher, X. (1996). Teaming by design

Rath, T. & Conchie, X. (2008). Strengths based leadership

Pollach, S. & Fusoni, M. (2005). Moving beyond icebreakers: an innovative

approach to group facilitation, learning, and action. MA: The Center for

Teen Empowerment.

Scharmer, C. O. (2009). Theory U: leading from the future as it emerges. San

Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

Senge, P. M. (2006). The fifth discipline: the art and practice of the learning

organization (Rev. ed.). New York: Doubleday.

Senge, P., Scharmer, C. O., Jaworski, J. & Flowers, B. S. (2004). Presence:

exploring profound change in people, organizations and society. New York:

Doubleday.

Senge, P., Smith, B., Kruschwitz, N., Laur, J. & Schley, S. (2008). The necessary

revolution: how individuals and organizations are working together to create

a sustainable world. NY: Doubleday.

Simpson, L. (2002, August). Why managing up matters. Harvard Management Update,

7(8), 3-5. Retrieved May 14, 2009 from EBSCOhost database.

Solomon, R. C. & Flores, F. (2001). Building trust in business, politics, relationships

and life. London: Oxford University Press.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is the property of the Myers and Briggs

Foundation at www.myersbriggs.org.

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Tools for leadership and learning (2002). National Managers’ Community: Building

a learning organization. [also available at www.managers-gestionnaires.ge.ca]

Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Synder, W. M. (2002). Communities of practice and

their value to organizations. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

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Appendix “A”

The Strengths Interview

1. What do you enjoy most about your work? What keeps you here? 2. What do you think your strengths are? (skills, knowledge, talent) 3. What about your weaknesses? 4. What are your goals for your current role? How would you measure success for

those goals? (scores, timelines) 5. How often would you like to meet with me to discuss your progress? 6. Do you have any personal goal or commitment you would like me to know about? 7. What is the best praise you have ever received? What made it so good? 8. Have you had any really productive working relationships or mentors? Why do

you think that relationship worked well for you? 9. What are your future growth goals, career goals? Are there any particular skills

you want to learn? Specific challenges you want to experience? What can I do to help?

10. Is there anything else you want to talk about that might help us work well together?

The Performance Planning Meeting (The first three questions are to be prepped by the team member beforehand.)

1. What actions have you taken? 2. What discoveries have you made? 3. What new working relationships have you built? 4. What is your main focus? 5. What new discoveries are you planning? 6. What new working relationship are you hoping to build?

Source: First Break all the Rules

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Appendix “B”

Twelve Questions from First Break all the Rules

Disagree Somewhat Disagree

Generally Agree

Agree

Agree Strongly

1. I know what is expected of me at work.

2. I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right.

3. At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.

4. In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.

5. My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.

6. Someone at work encourages my development.

7. At work, my opinions seem to count.

8. The mission/purpose of my company make me feel my job is important.

9. My co-workers are committed to doing quality work.

10. I have a best friend at work. 11. In the last six months,

someone at work talked to me about my progress.

12. This last year, I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow.

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Appendix “C”

Team Top 5 Grid Strengths

Achiever Activator Adaptability Analytical Arranger Belief Command Communication Competition Conectedness Consitency Context Deliverative Developer Discipline Empathy Focus Futuristic Harmony Ideation Includer Individualization Input Intellection Learner Maximizer Positivity Relator Responsibility Restorative Self-Assurance Significance Strategic Woo Source: www.strengths.gallup.com

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Appendix “D”

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The rest of the story…

I described my first year at Land and Properties in my final essay for LEAD 525.

Here is the rest of the story that continued during our second annual offsite on January

27, 2010. This was a very successful session influenced by Retreats That Work (Liteman,

Cambell & Liteman, 2006) and Moving Beyond Icebreakers (Pollack & Fusoni, 2005). I

facilitated this session myself for a staff of four. We checked in with introductions and an

ice breaker. I introduced the content and the intent for the day including Vegas Rules and

a draft agenda on flipcharts taped to the wall. The room was very cluttered for my taste,

however, it was conveniently located downtown close to our location and several

restaurants. It was important to us that an offsite be “off” site.

Then, we did a round robin check-in. One member felt distracted by a special

event she was hosting on the weekend, one was “on”, another felt relaxed because he was

headed on vacation, yet another was tired from staying up late. I was very excited to be

there. I was hoping that my enthusiasm would be infectious. A nice pace was set for the

day, and I think that it was clear that we were spending the day together by choice and

that this was an investment in ourselves.

We moved onto the springboard exercise, which was the coat of arms. I

introduced the exercise to the team. This is a tricky one because it is a little bit out of

some people’s comfort zone. Participants are to collage pictures from magazines to a coat

of arms outline with five sections: strengths according to the Clifton StrengthsFinder

(Buckingham & Clifton, 2001), values, DISC profile, Thomas Kilmann Instrument

results, and a vision, mission, dream or heart of your desire in the middle of the coat of

arms. We took a full hour to complete the exercise. It was very effective at making us

Dare to DREAM 25

reflect with our intelligences, mind and heart. One team member even asked if we could

do this everyday at work. He now proudly displays his coat of arms on his office door.

Once the coat of arms were all completed, participants debriefed to the rest of the

team. Three of the participants reported that they had found this to be a difficult exercise.

However, they persevered and the results were exceptional.

After a break, I introduced the shared values work component of the offsite. I

introduced this part of the session by leaving it wide open as to how we proceeded. One

team member suggested that each person describe one value, pass it on to the next

person, and so on. So each person named the value and described their definition,

significance/related beliefs, and related behaviours. Each person covered three values

before lunch. We walked over to a local restaurant for lunch, which turned out to be a

great venue with good food and friendly service.

After lunch, we continued with the shared values and a review of the shared

vision. Some had six values; some had as many as ten. This was one of the best team

exercises I have ever tried. Team members were honest and open with each other.

Constructive feedback and support was provided by all.

It was then decided by the group that we would write each value on post-it notes

and group them in themes on the wall. This took about 45 minutes, and we described our

values in line with the DREAM Master Key. We are committed to walking our talk,

growing our knowledge, investing in ourselves and the team, acting on our strengths, and

contributing to our communities. Concurrently, our team vision was tweaked to: We are a

learning team that adds value by combining and sharing our values and strengths to build

sustainable communities.

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After a short break, our attention turned to the Parker Team Instrument. Team

members started by guessing each others’ results. This was fun and resulted in the

following summary.

Team Grid Contributor Collaborator Communicator Challenger

1 41 52 25 62

2 38 40 42 60

3 44 38 48 50

Me 28 58 58 36

4 62 44 37 37

After a conversation about these results, the session then moved to strategic

planning which was pointing at:

• Initiate program plan.

• Review policies.

• Align our opportunities with Municipal Development Plan.

• Develop sustainability plan.

• Focus on community planning and design.

• Comply with ISO 14001.

Other goals included a park in Southlands, an entrance sign in Southlands, and

shared learning including sustainability and Crucial Conversations.

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At the end of the day, we summarized the session and checked out. We reviewed

the outputs and did a quick check-out. A great day was had by all. We cleaned up after

ourselves and made sure to keep the outputs captured on flipcharts.

As a result of this session, we updated our team charter, are co-creating our

strategic plan, and continue to develop a deeper understanding of what motivates

individual team members. As of April 28 of this year, our department’s absenteeism (a

key metric of employee morale) is 60% below the corporate average. We are tied for

third lowest rate amongst 26 organization units.

References

Buckingham, M. & Clifton, D. (2001). Now, Discover Your Strengths. New York: The

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