Team Climate Self-Assessment

People Development

6 years ago

Objectives

To help the team to focus on process or climate characteristics rather than task characteristics.
To help a team to develop a good team climate to underpin their effectiveness at getting tasks done.
To practise open discussion on sensitive issues.

60 minutes

One copy of the “Team Climate Self-Assessment Survey Handout” per team member plus some extras.

A flip chart with the seven characteristics and the five point scale. Marker pens. Self-adhesive dots (optional).

Divide the team into smaller subgroups of three to six persons in each group.
The activity leader hands the checklist of questions to individual team members and one extra for each group. Explain that there are a number of key interpersonal issues that commonly cause disagreement to occur within teams; the checklist gathers these issues into categories and suggests a number of questions that can be issued to both diagnose underlying problems and provide a checklist for improving future performance. There are no right or wrong answers; rather the benefit of this self-assessment tool is in allowing the team to have objective discussions about how effectively each member of the team perceives the team is working.
As a first step and without discussion, individual team members should answer the questions.
The second step is for the sub-groups to reach consensus on a group score and note this down on the spare handout.
Each group using self-adhesive dots or a marker pen should mark their score for each characteristic on the flip chart prepared by the activity leader.
The activity leader should facilitate a debriefing discussion.

This is a difficult debrief as you are dealing with sensitive issues. The activity leader will need to set a climate conducive to openness and try to seek out the view of all team members without putting anyone in a difficult position.
Look at the items where there is agreement and try to understand the different perspectives if there is disagreement.
Identify those which need your attention and map out on the flip chart some ways to address those. Focus on specific actions that you can take.