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The Client: a US Government Agency

LBS was approached by the division head of the federal government agency.

The Challenge:

LBS was approached by the division head of a federal government agency. The division head shared that her division was experiencing uncharacteristically low levels of engagement and uncommonly increased levels of conflict.

80% of the team had over 15 years of shared experience working together. The remaining 20% had joined the team within the last 5 years with the newest team member hired 6 months prior. The division was in the midst of technology implementation and there was a recent realignment of duties. The division head explained that this level of change was not new for the group and was most likely not the cause of this turn in cohesion and sentiment.

The Solution: Uncovering the root cause and facilitating improvements

LBS re-interviewed the division head, 2 senior executives, 5 managers, and 10 team members. LBS senior analysts deployed our Personivate personality profile to the team, including the division head. LBS compiled group charts representing group scores on the Personivate profile. LBS also compiled all interview findings. From these two sources of information, we discovered topic patterns and common themes. For one, a recent change had disrupted team cohesion. The recent realignment in responsibilities left half of her team feeling undervalued as the other half received more high-visibility projects. As cohesion decreased, competition increased between the half of the team that received the high-level projects and the half that did not. In addition, as group personality traits were analyzed, we found that the group was homogeneous in many ways; however, leadership was on opposite poles of the traits measured. This created a mismatch in the way leadership communicated, provided feedback, and attempted to motivate the group. Understanding the challenges this team faced, LBS recommended a series of actions for Leadership and a sequence of custom training workshops for the division. The workshops were created to establish common ground, rebuild trust and rapport, and equip the groups with a process for constructively resolving future conflicts.

Upon completion of all analysis and workshops, we reported final findings and presented them to the division head and her senior executive. Recommendations were made to augment her communication style.

Periodic follow-ups were planned with leadership and key team members to evaluate the sustainable nature of the recommendations and the intervention.

The Outcome:

Recommendations were adopted and deployed. Before the first scheduled check-in, the division head reached back to LBS to express excitement over visible improvements and gratitude for the change. After 3 months and 6-month check-ins, team cohesion remained elevated, and noticed and reported conflicts dropped (by %), because of the increased cohesion among the team.