Breakdown in working relationships – Voluntary Sector

How a team facilitation operates will obviously depend very much on the context and will take into account the views of individuals within the team. It may be a stand alone intervention or used as part of a wider process.

One example of where this approach has been used was where relations between a number of team members had deteriorated due to changes in personnel with recent redundancies and a restructure also impacting. A number of conflicting concerns had been raised with management. It appeared that there were effectively two camps; one reporting concerns with one individual, the other feeling that this was unfair. Individual meetings were held with those concerned to seek views as to the underlying causes and on what needed to happen to improve working relationships.

The issues identified by the team  formed the agenda for a facilitated group discussion . As part of this, the team were able to share concerns in a safe and managed environment. It helped to clarify misunderstanding and assumptions. Team members gave a commitment that they would attempt to resolve any concerns directly with each other before raising concerns more formally or raising concerns on behalf of others.  Whilst the facilitated meeting was difficult for some it did enable all to understand the impact of the situation on others and the team were able to agree to draw a line under what had gone before and move forward more positively.

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