Teamwork for Boards of Directors & Executive Teams

Team Development Services (TDS) is a business consulting firm that works directly with Boards of Directors/Trustees and Executive Teams in developing and improving the teamwork of the board or team itself.

Boards and executive teams have much to accomplish during their terms. The temptation is to jump right into the task at hand.  Within a few months, cracks in the board or team can emerge, work slows down, and leaders may begin to wonder if anything positive will be accomplished.

TDS believes in first paying attention to building a strong foundation of teamwork on the Board of Directors/Trustees, or Executive Team.  With teamwork at the highest level of the organization, not only does strategic planning become more meaningful, but the entire organization starts to become more cohesive and focused on accomplishing everything it sets out to do.

What We Offer

COURSES

  • Management as a career.
  • Hill’s three skill levels of management.
  • Drucker’s “Getting things done through other people.”
  • The four functions of management (Planning; Organizing; Leading: Controlling.)
  • Gilbert’s Behavioral Engineering Model of understanding managerial work.
  • The evolution of management thinking (a brief tour of management and motivation theories) (Taylor; Gilbreths; Follett; Maslow; Theory X+Y; Herzberg; Adams.)
  • Negotiation skills (appropriate to level and context.)
  • Adizes’s corporate life cycles (emphasis on staying at the “prime” level.)
  • Managing time and priorities.
  • “The OD Wheel” (to address departmental or organization-wide issues.)
  • Committing to ongoing development as a manager.
  • Types of decisions; when and when not to make a decision.
  • Levels of participative decision-making.
  • Cost-benefit analysis and going beyond “bounded rationality”; importance of developing options.
  • Appreciating and understanding the manager’s role in working under major US federal fair employment laws and orders (National Labor Relations Act; Civil Rights Act of 1964 as amended; harassment-free work environment (see below); Executive Orders 11246, 11375, and 11478; Fair Labor Standards Act,; Equal Pay Act; Pregnancy Discrimination Act; FMLA Act; Americans with Disabilities Act; Age Discrimination in Employment Act as amended; Immigration and Reform Act; The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act; and OSHA Act.
  • Harassment-free work environment, including sexual harassment; legal understanding from the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as amended; importance of disseminated and understood policy; full and fair investigations; and training for managers and employees.
  • Pennsylvania fair employment laws including Pennsylvania Human Relations Act; Pennsylvania Personnel File Inspection Act; Unemployment Compensation; and Workers’ Compensation.
  • Importance of the manager’s focus on employee job performance; working with Human Resources as a partner; observation and documentation.
  • Writing skills (mechanics, usage, construction.)
  • Listening skills (emphasis on active listening.)
  • Improving email.
  • Using SBAR technique (Situation; Background; Assessment; Recommendation.)
  • Making a persuasive business case in writing.
  • Explores the four types of emotional intelligence -- self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.
  • Emphasis on mini-scenario study and discussion.
  • Setting performance standards.
  • Feedforward; concurrent; and feedback modes of management control.
  • “Coaching on the Fly” nine-step coaching model.
  • Tools to diagnose and analyze root causes of common problems using 5 Whys, Fishbone Diagrams, and visualization.
  • Optional assessment: Wiley’s PXT Select has a “Coaching Report,” for individualized coaching.
  • Tuckman’s five stages of team development and the manager’s role in moving a team successfully through each stage.
  • Lencioni’s “Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team.”
  • Fun bridge-building exercise.
  • Optional assessment: Wiley’s Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team (either the team version or the individual version.)
  • Optional assessment: Wiley’s PXT Select can be used to select individuals to serve on a team, as it is a valid selection tool, and to coach individuals once they are on the team. The PXT Select Coaching Report helps teammates understand how they differ in behavioral tendences, to facilitate daily interactions.
  • Middle-management level study of leadership theories, emphasizing application of theory to the manager’s everyday practice.
  • Includes examinations of the Trait Approach; Skills Approach; Behavioral Approach; Situational Approach; Path-Goal; Servant Leadership; Leader-Member Exchange; Authentic Leadership; Transformational Leadership; Adaptive Leadership; and some emerging approaches.
  • Usually include some type of leadership group project as part of this course.
  • Optional assessments: Wiley’s DiSC – Management, or DiSC – Work of Leaders.
  • The nature of workplace conflicts.
  • Conflict handling styles.
  • How to mediate a dispute.
  • Optional assessment: Wiley’s DiSC- Productive Conflict.
  • Accelerating pace of change and the difficulty for people to change; small and sustainable change.
  • Maslow and the loss of control employees may experience during times of change.
  • Doing change better: a three-phase change management approach (preparation phase; in-process; post-changes.)

OTHER SERVICES

John Wiley & Sons, Inc. certified trainer and authorized partner for:
  • Everything DiSC® Workplace
  • Everything DiSC® Work of Leaders
  • Everything DiSC® Productive Conflict
  • The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team®
  • PXT Select™
Assessment: Wiley’s PXT Select - assists hiring managers to match candidates to job profiles and to ask targeted questions in interviews based on assessment results. PXT Select also can be used as a guide for internal promotions and succession planning.
Employee opinion surveys – focus groups; interviews; on paper and online. Individual management coaching. Affirmative Action Program development.

About Us

Janet McNally, D.Ed. SPHR is the owner and principal educational consultant of Team Development Services, a consulting firm. Janet is an experienced management professional with over 25 years in human resources and organization development.  She has been teaching management and leadership courses for the Business department at Penn State York for the past 21 years, and received the campus James H. Burness Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2019. 

Janet presents training in all modes — in-person, remote synchronous, and remote asynchronous – and is conversant with Canvas, D2L, Blackboard, and other learning management systems. She is knowledgeable in all phases of training from needs assessment through evaluation.

Our Training Philosophy

  • “Nothing happens for nothing” in training.  Every piece connects to the purpose.
  • Activities and discussion make concepts real and translatable.
  • Often the best source of wisdom is the people in the room.
  • The measure of training is that participants use what they learn.
  • Customization is the key to meeting client needs.