Team Collaboration for Results 
Last date for registration: 28 Jan, 2019
End Date : 09 Feb, 2019
Early Bird Discount Date : 17 Jan, 2019
Collaboration and ability to collaborate effectively are important skills for today’s organizations as well as in the future. In rapidly changing environments, innovative partnerships, collaboration and diversity are all keys to staying in business and developing new ways of thinking. Many of these new partnerships will be atypical where collaborative capabilities come to the fore. Atypical means that we do not necessarily know with whom we will collaborate because networks arise from needs and changes in the variety of environments. This means that tolerance, and the ability to tolerate and work with uncertainty and difference, are keys to agile team members.
One inevitable law of teams is that they are made up of different people. As we are all different, there is no way to escape this certainty which is the main reason for misunderstandings, costs, unproductive behaviors, and losses – just to mention a few. Diversity and differences, whether due to language, nationality, ethnicity, age, gender, and position all bring in diversity of challenges – but also the chance of creating new ways of thinking, acting and collaborating.
Teams are an integral part of a modern organization. Research has shown that most teams need space and time to ‘jell’. However, in the modern, fast-paced organizational world this is not always possible. Teams are often virtual with limited face-to-face time, have a wide variety of people in them, change and regroup often with stressful and tight schedules. Therefore, examining what makes a team collaborate effectively is the key to reducing unnecessary stresses and freeing potential to engage with the task in hand.
The programme will involve exploration and practice around how we can use and leverage the diversity of teams to avoid a potential negative and instead create a positive result for real added value. Through a combination of fact-based results of research on team behaviors, and the opportunity for each individual to make valuable self-discoveries, we will guide and encourage participants to examine their current approach to team collaboration, and develop different insights and behaviors to bring about a step-change in collaborative results.
We will examine:
- How to create a team in which people continuously develop
- The neuroscientific basis that shows the roots of difficulties in managing diversity
- The major emotions caused by difference and how we can manage them
- The major differences people experience when business practices are involved
- How to create a sense of belonging
- How to increase collaboration
- The ability to lead change
- The awareness to link activities, culture management, profit & loss
- Ways to focus on adaptability to a constantly changing context.
We will take a multi-faceted approach in order to open participants’ eyes to the advantages of leading or collaborating with teams in a way which incorporates the capability or reading into people’s minds, developing empathy, flexibility, understanding of differences, together with team management approaches. Based on our knowledge of neuroscience, we believe that while the traditional approach can bring structure to team-collaboration, it is the understanding and application of an empathetic approach that allows team members to bring their diverse visions, creativity and insight to work, building fruitful and helpful relationships that nurture the ability to achieve unexpected and rewarding results for the whole team.
During this programme we will explore the many aspects of ‘difference’, and how the innate differences of each team member can affect team results, for good or for bad. We will look at social, psychological and intercultural studies to give participants a wide overview of difference; teams today comprise people of different age, gender, socio-economic and geographic origin, each with their own outlook and expectations. Starting from the viewpoint of what it means to be different, we will take a look at the neurosciences to gain an insight into why it is so difficult to manage a diverse team, and the application of a specific 3-step process to manage difference for effective collaboration, flexibility and adaptability.
Through the presentation and analysis of quantitative data, we will look at how difficulties due to difference manifest themselves in teams. In many cases, failure to achieve the desired outcomes is not recognized as being due to a breakdown in team behavior, but is blamed on other factors.
From an experiential perspective, we will guide participants to a deeper understanding of how they can adapt and manage their own collaborative interactions, and encourage such adaptability in their teams. This work will involve exercises, case studies and hands-on assignments that focus on a number of crucial areas for team leaders and team members to build self-awareness and a foundation for change, also using practical qualitative measurements to manage the roots of change.
One significant area of focus will be the management of emotions linked to difference, both from the perspective of the team leader and the team member. Acknowledging and managing one’s own emotional response is an important responsibility for a leader. And the ability to spot an unexpected emotional response in a team member and its possible triggers is a crucial skill, depending on accurate observation skills regarding verbal and non-verbal communication, followed by appropriate dialogue. Bringing this all together, we will look at how a better understanding of difference can be leveraged to create a new style of business.
The programme will combine data presentation, analysis of research data, case-studies and lectures, together with experiential learning methods. Participants will be introduced to theories of difference and team collaboration, and will be presented with tools and techniques for continued self-development and a basis for leading change in their teams.
This programme is targeted towards executives in a managerial role who either work in teams or are responsible for teams. It is recommended that participants have at least five years of managerial experience to be able to appreciate the nuances of interpersonal dynamics.
Dr Sari Mattila received her Ph.D. degree from Tampere University of Technology in the field of Management and OB/HR after an integrated Master’s Degree in Philosophy from the University of Joensuu (now part of the University of Eastern Finland). She has previously taught at IIM-A, Institute of Management, Nirma University, Flame School of Business, and CEPT in India besides Tampere University of Technology and University of Turku in Finland. Her topics in different LDPs and EEPs have included Cross-Cultural Management, Leadership, Creativity and Innovation, Organisational Behaviour, Ethics, Business Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, Mentoring and Coaching, Socratic Dialogues, and Wisdom and Knowing. She is interested in FiloCafes, Socratic Dialogues and its applications, group dynamics, mindfulness, organizational chaos, psychosocial realities and applications of fiction in real life (and vice versa). Before her academic career, she has worked in industry in various positions of responsibility. Prior to that she was into competitive professional horseback riding. She has herself been doing mindfulness practices as part of her interest in experiential learning, counselling and therapy, psychodrama, yoga, mindfulness and vipassana.
Dr Raffaella Bossi Fornarini has a Master’s degree in Modern Literature from Universitá Statale di Milano, and management qualifications from the Sorbonne, the London Business School at Regent’s College, the University of Pacific - Oregon, and SDA Bocconi and MIP Politecnico di Milano, among others. She is Professor of Organizational Behaviour at MIP Politecnico di Milano, and Professor of Intercultural Management at SP Jain, Mumbai. Her 20 years with corporations included many years as international Director, Brand Marketing, for Whirlpool Corporation. She has been working for many years in international Corporate Entrepreneurship programmes led by Prof. Gary Hamel from the headquarters of a corporation. She also builds on her own direct experience in leaving a corporate position and opening a company and continues to work with companies on intercultural programmes. In 2005 she created, and still manages, a consulting and training company, Passport, that developed proprietary tools and methodologies to support companies and individuals facing cultural changes and working across cultural differences.
Programme Fee and Payment
INR 81,000/- Residential (+ Applicable GST) per person for participants from India and its equivalent in US Dollars for participants from other countries.
The participants are required to work on assignments, cases and prepare for the classes the next day during the programme days. The programme therefore has been structured as a residential programme. Non-residential option is not available.
Early Bird Discount
Nominations received with payments on or before 17-Jan-19 will be entitled to an early bird Discount of 10%.
- Early Bird Fee (Residential) INR 72,900/-(+ Applicable GST)
Please Note:
All enrolments are subject to review and approval by the programme director. Joining Instructions will be sent to the selected candidates 10 days prior the start of the programme. Kindly do not make your travel plans unless you receive the letter from IIMB.
A certificate of participation will be awarded to the participants by IIMB.
- The programme fee should be received by the Executive Education Office before the programme commencement date.
- In case of cancellations, the fee will be refunded only if a request is received at least 15 days prior to the start of the programme.
- If a nomination is not accepted, the fee will be refunded to the person/ organisation concerned.