Group Dynamics in Workshops

I was having team with my neighbors who is Director at a reputed consulting firm. He has seen me facilitate teams for bring clarity through Sketchnotes 📝 He promptly asked me to suggest some way to resolve conflicts in his team. He said “they are always on fire, waiting to put each other down”. My eyes lit up and rolled up 🧠remembering what I did in my team few years ago. In high-performing teams, conflict is inevitable. When collaboration 👥is frequent and stakes are high, differing working styles, communication gaps, and behavioural patterns can often spark friction. But rather than letting these conflicts fester, what if we turned them into opportunities for clarity and growth? One powerful ritual I’ve found useful is something called a Behavioural Retrospective 🙌— a structured conversation that helps teams reflect on behaviours causing friction and co-create better ways of working together. Let’s break it down 🧩 What is a Behavioural Retrospective? Unlike project retrospectives that focus on processes and outcomes, a Behavioural Retrospective dives into the interpersonal actions and behaviours that impact team dynamics. It guides teams to safely surface frustrations, understand the root causes, and collectively agree on more constructive behaviours. Here’s a simple four-step framework to run one: ⸻ 1. Get Frustrations on Paper Start by asking team members to quietly write down actions or behaviours of peers that are frustrating them. Encourage specificity — focusing on actions, not people. ⸻ 2. Take Turns Sharing Create a safe, non-defensive space where team members can take turns sharing what they’ve written. A crucial mindset here: listen to understand, not to defend. Everyone deserves to be heard. ⸻ 3. Ask Revealing Questions Encourage the team to ask revealing, open-ended questions to uncover what’s beneath the surface. This helps build empathy, as people often act from unseen pressures or intentions. ⸻ 4. Make Suggestions for Alternate Behaviours End the session by inviting the team to suggest constructive, alternative behaviours. Focus on actions that can replace the problematic behaviours moving forward. Capture these as actionable, specific agreements. ⸻ Why This Works Behavioural Retrospectives promote empathy, mutual respect, and a culture of continuous improvement within the team. ⸻ If your team has been experiencing behavioural conflicts, this might be a good ritual to introduce in your next cycle. It’s a simple but transformative way to realign as a team — not just on what you build, but how you work together. Have you tried something similar? Would love to hear how you handle behavioural conflicts in your team. #TeamCulture #Leadership #Retrospective #ConflictResolution

I’ve run close to 1,000 strategy workshops in the last 4 years. Here are 10 things I’ve learned... My journey with workshops started long before consulting. During my 22 years at Disney, I sat through thousands of them worldwide, most of the time as a participant. Back then, I thought I knew what made a workshop effective. I’d seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. But stepping into the role of facilitator changed everything, because my biggest lessons aren’t really about facilitation at all. They’re about how people behave when you put them in a room and ask them to think, decide, and commit together. Here are 10 of my main takeaways: 1) Frameworks help, but they’re not the point. They guide the process and spark ideas, but the real value isn’t in filling boxes or following steps. It’s in the conversations and decisions they nurture. 2) Silence is uncomfortable, but sacred. Psychologists say “group pause” is crucial for deeper thinking. Silence often brings honesty and insight if you know how to interpret it. 3) People are more scared of being seen than of being wrong. Fear of judgment makes people hide. You must create a safe environment, so they can contribute without performing a character. 4) Leaders who speak last enable better conversations. Teams thrive when leaders listen first and synthesize later. It prevents bias, widens input, and shows that every voice matters. 5) The best breakthroughs come after tension, not consensus. Consensus often dilutes outcomes. I prefer to shake things up with constructive friction that stimulates creativity and innovation. 6) Getting the problem right matters more than solving it on time. Framing the problem is more important than solving it fast. It's better to take time than arrive on time at the wrong solution. 7) Participants only see 10% of the facilitator’s work. Most of a workshop’s prework is invisible: structure, research, context. What matters is the energy in the room and the outcomes it creates. 8) You can’t plan for 100%. Something can go wrong. There are always surprises. Facilitation is less about the agenda, more about reading the room to adjust if needed. 9) The workshop’s quality depends on the quality of relationships. Even the best facilitation can’t fix a dysfunctional team. I invest a lot of time in team dynamics because it's the foundation for insightful conversations and alignment. 10) The workshop doesn’t end when the session ends. You must harvest the unspoken thoughts, reflections, and realizations that surface hours or days later. Follow-ups are key because breakthrough happens in the moments that follow. What all of this has taught me is simple: Workshops aren’t really about strategy, they’re about people. If you create the right conditions, the strategy will follow. If you don’t, no framework in the world will save your business. - - - PS: DM me 📩 if you’d like a peek inside the 25+ workshops included in the Brand Strategy Program✷.

The first 5 minutes of your workshop decide everything. Most facilitators waste them. Here's what typically happens in the first 5 minutes: ��� "Let me tell you a bit about myself..." → A slide with the agenda → An icebreaker that has nothing to do with the work → "Let's go around and share your name, role, and a fun fact" By minute 5, your participants have already decided: → Is this going to be worth my time? → Will I have to sit and listen all day? → Is this person going to lecture me or let me work? And most facilitators have accidentally answered all three questions wrong. Here's what the best facilitators do instead: Move 1: State the outcome in one sentence. (30 seconds) Not your bio. Not the agenda. Not a welcome slide. One sentence that tells the room exactly what they'll walk out with. → Not: "Today we'll explore team dynamics and communication." → Instead: "By 4pm, your team will have a written conflict resolution process you'll use starting Monday." That sentence does more work than any introduction. It tells participants this session has a point and their time won't be wasted. Move 2: Set the rules of the room. (60 seconds) → "You'll do 95% of the talking today. I'm here to run the process." → "Phones away unless you're using them for the exercises." → "You can disagree with anyone, including me. That's encouraged." Three sentences. Now everyone knows how this room works. No one's spending mental energy guessing. Move 3: Get them working immediately. (3 minutes) Not talking about the work. Doing the work. → "Grab a pen. Write down the one team conflict that's cost you the most time in the last month. You have 90 seconds." → "Turn to the person next to you. Share what you wrote. You have 2 minutes." Within 3 minutes, every person in the room has done something. They've committed an opinion to paper. They've spoken out loud. The session is no longer something happening to them. They're in it. That's your first 5 minutes: → 30 seconds: the outcome → 60 seconds: the rules → 3 minutes: first activity No bio. No agenda slide. No fun facts. Why this works: The first 5 minutes set the pattern for the entire session. If you start by talking at people, they expect to be talked at for the rest of the day. If you start by getting them working, they expect to keep working. You're not just opening a workshop. You're training the room on how this session operates. The facilitators who lose the room in hour 2 almost always made the same mistake: they spent the first 5 minutes telling the room this was going to be another session where someone talks and everyone else listens. By the time they try to get participation, the pattern was already set. First 5 minutes. Outcome. Rules. Work. Everything else follows from there. ___ Save this for later (three dots, top right). Share with friends → ♻️ Repost. Get consultant-grade workshops every Sat → https://lnkd.in/eSfeUapJ

"Seen as complex, adaptive, and dynamic systems, groups: • Are nested open systems. Groups interact with the smaller systems (i.e., the members) embedded within them and the larger systems (e.g., organizations, communities) within which they are embedded; • Have fuzzy boundaries that both distinguish them from and connect them to their members and their different contexts — organizations, communities, and physical and cultural environments; • Change their structure and behaviour over time, yielding temporal patterns of development. Change is driven in part by the effects of experience and history, and in part by the group’s adaptive response to the impact of events; • Contain feedback loops that create non-linear effects. Both negative (damping) and positive (amplifying) feedback are always found in groups as complex systems. A small change in a local variable that triggers a positive feedback loop can ultimately result in a big change at the global level; • Are shaped by unobservable, but influential, emergent structures and properties. Interactions between members are based on the idea of coordination — members in a group must adjust to one another interpersonally to coordinate goals, understanding, and action. As a result of many cycles of interaction, patterns emerge that give rise to group-level properties and structures that define the overall dynamic of the group. Influential variables in a group can include written and unwritten norms that dictate behaviour, expectations about member’s roles, and networks of connections among the members (like status, attraction and communication networks)." By Daniel Christian Wahl. #selforganization #complexity #systemsthinking --- tijntjoelker.substack.com 💌

🚀 Wrapped up an exciting workshop with a scaleup. Here's how to deliver killer sessions 👇 1️⃣ Less is more: We focused on quality over quantity. One big, memorable activity beats a dozen forgettable ones. 2️⃣ The main event? A high-stakes egg drop! Teams built landers to protect eggs from a big fall. Talk about a crash course in problem-solving! 🥚💥 3️⃣ The real magic? It happened AFTER the eggs landed (or splattered 😅). The magic is in the the debrief. Debrief is crucial. 𝗪𝗲 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗮 𝘀𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗯𝗼𝗮𝘁 𝗲𝘅𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗱𝘆𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗰𝘀: - What's propelling us forward? 🌬️ - What's holding us back? ⚓ - What hidden rocks (risks) can hinder our progress? 🪨 - What's our island paradise (goal)? 🏝️ This visual metaphor unlocked buried conversations. It's amazing how a simple drawing reveals complex dynamics! 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗱𝗼 𝗜 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗿𝘂𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗽𝘀? Simply put, you can see in real-time teams building trust, gaining clarity, and deepening bonds. In a time where workplace dynamics are spent over endless Zoom calls and Slack threads, there's something irreplaceable about being in the same room, facing the same challenges, and yes, cleaning up the same egg mess together. 🧼 𝗞𝗲𝘆 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗿𝘂𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗽: 1. Focus on depth, not breadth 2. Create a memorable centerpiece activity 3. Dedicate ample time for reflection and debrief 4. Use visual metaphors to unlock deeper insights 5. Balance structure with spontaneity --- 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝗿𝗲𝘁 𝘀𝗮𝘂𝗰𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗳𝘂𝗹 𝗼𝗳𝗳𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲𝘀? Share in the comments - let's learn from each other! 👇 #TeamBuilding #Leadership #Workshops #ScaleupLife #EggDropSurvivors --- I'm Hugo Pereira. I'm the co-founder of Ritmoo and a fractional growth advisor who has taken businesses from $1m to $100m+. I love building purpose-driven, resilient teams. Follow me to master growth, leadership, and teamwork. My book, "Teamwork Transformed," arrives in 2024.

Applying Cummings & Worley Group Diagnostic Model #OrganizationalDevelopment #TeamDynamics #PharmaIndustry #Leadership #ChangeManagement Scenario Background: A mid-sized pharmaceutical company has been experiencing declining productivity and increasing conflict within its research and development (R&D) teams. The leadership suspects that ineffective team dynamics and poor alignment of goals might be contributing factors. To address these issues, How L & D professional can utilize the Group Level Diagnostic Model, which focuses on diagnosing and improving group effectiveness within an organization. Step 1: Entry and Contracting: Objective: Establish a clear understanding of the project scope, objectives, and mutual expectations with the R&D teams. Actions: Conduct initial meetings with team leaders to discuss the perceived issues and desired outcomes. Step 2: Data Collection Objective: Gather information to understand current team dynamics, processes, and challenges. Actions: Distribute surveys and conduct interviews to collect data on team communication, collaboration, role clarity, and decision-making processes. Observe team meetings and workflows to identify misalignments and potential areas of conflict. Use assessment tools to measure team cohesion, trust levels, and satisfaction among team members. Step 3: Data Analysis Objective: Analyze the collected data to identify patterns, root causes of dysfunction, and areas for intervention. Actions: Compile and analyze survey results and interview transcripts to identify common themes and discrepancies. Map out communication flows and decision-making processes that highlight bottlenecks or conflict points. Assess the alignment between team goals and organizational objectives. Step 4: Feedback and Planning Objective: Share findings with the teams and plan interventions to address the identified issues. Actions: Conduct feedback sessions with each team to discuss the findings and implications. Facilitate workshops where teams can engage in problem-solving and planning to improve their processes and interactions. Develop action plans that include specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) objectives to enhance team performance. Step 5: Intervention Objective: Implement interventions aimed at improving team dynamics and effectiveness. Actions: Initiate team-building activities that focus on trust-building and role clarification. Provide training sessions on conflict resolution, effective communication, and collaborative problem-solving. Realign team goals with organizational objectives through strategic planning sessions. Step 6: Evaluation and Sustaining Change Objective: Assess the effectiveness of interventions and ensure sustainable improvements. Actions:Conduct follow-up assessments to measure changes in team performance and dynamics. Hold regular meetings to discuss progress and any ongoing issues. Adjust interventions as necessary based on feedback and new data.

Most team conflict isn't about personality clashes. It's about nervous systems colliding. That teammate who dominates every meeting. The one who never speaks up. The person who agrees to everything, then resents it later. The colleague who vanishes the moment things get hard. We call these "communication styles." They're not. They're trauma responses. 𝗙𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼��𝘀𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: → Interrupts or talks over others → Gets defensive when ideas are challenged → Dominates conversations to feel in control → Responds to feedback with pushback → Creates tension without knowing why 𝗙𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗼𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: → Avoids conflict at all costs → Stays silent in meetings, then vents privately → Misses deadlines when pressure builds → Changes the subject when things get uncomfortable → Physically or mentally checks out 𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗲𝘇𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀: → Goes blank when put on the spot → Can't make decisions under pressure → Perfectionism that stalls projects → Shuts down during difficult conversations → Appears disengaged or distant 𝗙𝗮𝘄𝗻 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗽 𝗱𝘆𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗰𝘀: → Agrees with whoever has the most power → Takes on everyone else's work → Never pushes back, even when they should → Prioritizes harmony over honesty → Burns out from over-accommodating None of these are character flaws. They're nervous systems doing what they learned to do to survive. The problem is when two different trauma responses collide. A fight response meets a fawn response. One person bulldozes while the other silently drowns. A freeze response meets a flight response. Nothing gets decided or completed. These aren't personality mismatches. They're nervous system mismatches. And no amount of team-building exercises will fix them. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽𝘀: → Recognizing these patterns as protective, not problematic → Creating psychological safety so nervous systems can settle → Addressing the root, not just the behavior When people feel safe, they communicate differently. When nervous systems are regulated, collaboration flows. The "difficult" team dynamic often transforms when you stop treating it as a people problem and start treating it as a nervous system problem. Regulate your emotions. Reconnect with your body. Thrive at work. If your team keeps colliding and you're ready to understand why, trauma-informed workshops can help. This is how you build teams that actually work together. Message me or book a discovery call here: https://lnkd.in/euyv_yyj

Before designing a workshop, I always ask myself: Where does this group need to go 'from' and 'to'? Understanding their starting point helps me define how I want them to leave the session and what success looks like. Take the Work on Climate community workshop I facilitated a few years ago as an example. This vibrant community—tens of thousands connected via Slack—shared similar goals: transitioning their careers into climate work. Yet many hadn't, yet, developed personal connections in the community. Once I pinpointed their journey's start and destination, I broke down the session using the Kaos Pilots 5E model (guide in the comments 👇🏼). Designing a session that instilled pride in being part of a global movement while fostering personal connections in breakout rooms. With over 200 participants, the energy was palpable. And, I knew the workshop was a success when one participant, inspired by our discussion on how they could continue to support one another, took the initiative to form smaller accountability groups to keep the momentum going. How do you start your workshop design process? Picture: a piece of paper with hand written 5E process outlined with the description FROM Group of passionate individuals committed to finding climate work but not connected to each other. TO a community of individuals who are connected to a handful of others who are on similar paths & feel they belong to a wider movement.

I watched 25 senior leaders make a decision in 12 minutes. No debate. No compromise. No one left unhappy. This was the "Science of Decision Making" session I facilitated at Blend in London over a week ago. The best part? Reading their reflections days later and seeing they got it. Why I do this work. There's another way to collaborate. Another way to make decisions as a group. An operating model beyond never-ending meeting tunnels. 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗱: → Only 20% of people talk 80% of the time. You're using just 20% of your most expensive resource. But the real cost isn't the salaries of that silent 80%. It's the opportunity cost. The ideas never considered. The solutions never voiced. The risks no one hears about. → Your quietest people aren't quiet because they lack expertise. They're quiet because the environment hasn't given them space. We played games. We role-played actual meeting scenarios (yes, the kind that feel absurd when acted out but happen in your boardroom every week). We simulated working under pressure. Then we did something most teams never do: we reflected on our own process in real time. I introduced them to one technique from my toolkit - Note & Vote. Simple, but powerful. I use hundreds of tools, techniques, and frameworks when designing and facilitating strategy sessions, complex problem-solving workshops for leadership teams. They all demonstrate core principles: → Working together alone → Visualizing discussions (ideas made tangible, not lost in air) → Sequencing the conversation (diverge first, then converge) → Structuring the chaos (clarity over confusion) 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱: → "How peaceful I felt about the decision, even though I didn't vote for it." → "The efficiency of organized decision-making." → Voting was a leveler → Separating ideas from ego → "I had to check my biases before voting." They all come back to the same truth: collaboration isn't natural. We don't instinctively know how to make good group decisions. We default to whoever talks loudest or ranks highest. When you add structure? When you use facilitation techniques grounded in neuroscience and proven through practice? Smart teams stop getting stuck. Several participants said they'll "never look at meetings the same way again." Not because of one exercise. Because they experienced what happens when you bridge theory and practice. When you give people tools they can use the next day. Not after a 3-year long change program. The next day. If your Tuesday meetings produce nothing but more meetings, it doesn't have to be this way. ♻ Share this if you've sat through one too many pointless meetings. ➡️ Follow me Rujuta Singh for frameworks that turn stuck teams into unstuck ones. Julia Belle Christopher Lauder Angelina Headley

Collaboration is not a group hug. Here’s a tale of two offsites that I think captures the problem: At one recent offsite, a participant said: “I feel like there’s tension in the room.” At the other, someone said: “I feel like there’s not enough tension in the room.” In both cases, the culprit? 👉 People confusing collaboration with Kumbaya. In Offsite no.1, people were worried things had gotten too direct, when it was in fact healthy disagreement. In Offsite no.2, they were frustrated that no one was saying what they really thought, because everyone was too focused on the happy vibes. In both offsites, people were confusing collaboration with being nice. But real collaboration isn’t about being nice. It’s about being courageous. It’s about saying: “I don’t think this idea is working.” “I think we’re solving the wrong problem.” “Are we actually having the conversation we need to have?” Collaboration, when it works, is: ✅ Constructive tension ✅ Trust that’s strong enough to handle a few sparks  ✅ Trust that’s strengthened by the way the sparks are handled 🤔 So how do you shift from polite to productive? Here are 3 ideas I use with teams to build real collaboration: 1️⃣ Name the need for tension. Start by saying: “We’ll probably disagree today. We should disagree today. That’s not a sign of a problem, it’s a sign of progress. That’s how we tap into value.” 2️⃣ Design for dissent. Ask: “Who sees it differently?” or “What’s the thing we’re not discussing?” Create roles like “valued challenger” to make challenge safe, and allocate time to airing differing viewpoints. 3️⃣ Debrief the dynamic. Pause mid-way and ask: “Are we having the right conversation? What’s not being said? What do we need from each other to make it safe to discuss that stuff?” This makes reflection part of the way you roll - not an afterthought. Collaboration done well should never be soft and fluffy. It should generate friction, from which value is discovered. Messy. Brave. Productive. So next time your team’s being unbearably polite, ask: 🤔 What are the conversations we need to be having, and how do we get to those quickly? _______ This year, I’m focused on helping my clients in 3 key ways: 🔥 Delivering meaningful leadership development programs for experienced leaders 🔥 Facilitating the conversations that matter most in leadership teams 🔥 Helping teams and organisations crack the collaboration code If any of those are on your radar right now, feel free to message me. Happy to chat. PS. If we haven't met before and you'd like to stay in touch, I welcome your connection request.