Teambuilding at Law

It takes a team to get extraordinary things done.

By definition, an effective team generates results that far exceed the sum of its parts. It achieves far more than its individual members could do working alone.

Team productivity is no longer a luxury within the context of a law firm or any corporate environment. Rather, it is essential to creating organizations that thrive and continually exceed their best.

In order for a team to function at its best, each team member must have a level of self-awareness that allows him to manage his own needs, so that he can continually perform at his best.

Each team member must also have an awareness of the strengths and needs of his teammates so that he can ensure that he acts to strengthen working relationships and to bring out the best in others.

The Birkman Method provides a powerful foundation for providing such awareness. It can be used to create a common understanding of your team's interests, behavioral styles and motivations -- a combination that is the key to your success.

Marrapese Associates offers a Teambuilding at Law initiative using The Birkman Method as a foundation. This initiative provides a team with a fun opportunity to:

• Spend time together learning the normal differences among people with respect to their interests, usual behavior, needs, and reactions under stress;
• Learn how these differences affect the ways each individual draws their energy, gathers information, makes decisions, responds to authority, and lives their life;
• Learn how to optimize their strengths as individuals and as a group; and
• Develop strategies to keep themselves out of stress or to respond more productively to stressful situations.

The result? Each individual team member leaves with an understanding of what types of behavior puts them into "stress mode," and with actionable tactics to manage his own needs when interacting with others on the team.

In addition, the team reaches consensus on areas of focus for the future and tactics for leveraging strengths of the team.

How it works: Each team member completes a Birkman questionnaire online and receives one-on-one feedback on his individual style, interests, motivators and stressors.

Then the entire team meets, typically for a two-day offsite retreat. The first day focuses primarily on helping team members understand the differences in style, motivation, and interests of their colleagues and the "culture" of their team.

Day two involves reaching specific agreements as to how the team will work together to leverage the strengths of each individual member, often within the context of an important initiative the firm is preparing to launch.