Developing High-Performance Teams

A strong team is built on more than talent alone. Our Team Development programs help organizations strengthen communication, build trust, align around shared goals, and leverage individual strengths to create collaborative, high-performing teams that achieve lasting results.

Why Invest in Team Development?

The productivity and harmony of teams are highly dependent on having a clear strategy, positive group dynamics, and effective leadership. Without this foundation, teams can struggle to communicate, collaborate, and perform at their best.

At Elevated Talent, our team development programs help teams understand how they work together, strengthen communication and trust, and create more effective ways of working. Depending on the team’s objectives, we may incorporate the Gallup CliftonStrengths® assessment to help team members understand and leverage their individual and collective strengths.

Organizations that Receive Training Report

7% - 23%

Higher Employee Engagement

8% - 18%

Increased Performance

20% - 73%

Lower Attrition

*Gallup research

What Makes a Team High-Performing?

In our team development engagements, we draw on A Model of Team Success as a framework for building high-performing teams. Teams function best when they have a common purpose and a strong foundation of connection, communication, collaboration, and celebration.

Our team development programs help teams build these foundations while creating a deeper understanding of individual strengths and how they can be leveraged to achieve shared goals.

A Model of Team Success

To maximize team performance, every team member must:

Connection

Be CONNECTED to a COMMON PURPOSE

Communication

COMMUNICATE with everyone effectively

Collaboration

COLLABORATE to find the best, most effective methods to work together and leverage team’s resources

Celebration

CELEBRATE individual strengths and team successes

What's Included in Our Team Development Programs?

1. Half-Day Session

The Building High-Performing Teams with CliftonStrengths, the half-day session package includes:

  • Preparatory and ongoing communication with participants.
  • 30-minute calls with individual team members to discuss each member’s CliftonStrengths results.

A Half-Day Workshop, Where Team Members:

  • Get to know each other better through ice-breaker exercises.
  • Develop awareness about each team member’s strengths and blind spots.
  • Discuss strategies to leverage one another’s strengths to become more effective.
  • Develop an understanding about the team’s collective strengths, potential blind spots and friction points, and ways to work more effectively under pressure (see an example, Team Strengths DNA chart below).
  • A designated coach to deliver ongoing support, communication, and workshop facilitation.
  • A debrief and support after the program’s completion.

2. Full-Day Session

The Building High-Performing Teams with CliftonStrengths, the full-day package includes everything noted in the half-day package plus a facilitated discussion to cover the following critical topics related to elements described in A Model of Team Success:

  • What are our organizational values, and how do we practice them on a day-to-day basis?
  • What are the organizational vision and mission?
  • How do we hold each other accountable?
  • How do we deal with failure and disappointments?
  • How do we give each other feedback?
  • How do we best communicate with each other? How about when under pressure?
  • How do we share information?
  • How do we make decisions?
  • How do we acknowledge each other and celebrate wins?

The key topics will be reviewed and finalized with you.

What’s Our Process?

Building high-performing teams with CliftonStrengths is a collaborative process designed around your team’s unique goals, dynamics, and organizational context. While every engagement is customized, our team development process typically involves the following activities:

Step 1

Discovery calls with participants before the program to gather data and understand the context of your organization.

Step 2

30-minute debrief of CliftonStrengths results with each team member to discuss strength and development areas.

Step 3

A half-day or full-day session, delivered in-person or virtually, explores the team’s diverse talents and develops a foundation for high performance. Based on A Model of Team Success, we identify the team’s shared purpose and build connection, communication, collaboration, and celebration.

Step 4

A Q&A debrief, and post-program support is offered to your team to address inquiries and feedback.

Team Development FAQ

What is team development?

Team development helps an intact team improve how its members work together. It focuses on the conditions required for sustained performance, including trust, communication, accountability, decision-making, collaboration, and alignment around a shared purpose.

Rather than treating the session as a one-time team-building activity, we help teams better understand their patterns and agree on practical changes to how they work together.

What types of teams benefit from team development?

Team development can benefit senior leadership teams, newly formed teams, established teams, and teams navigating growth, restructuring, new leadership, or organizational change.

It can also be useful when a capable team is experiencing unclear priorities, communication breakdowns, low trust, unresolved tension, inconsistent accountability, or difficulty making decisions together.

How is team development different from team building?

Team-building activities often focus on strengthening relationships through a shared experience. Team development goes further by helping members examine how the team actually operates and address the behaviours, processes, and dynamics affecting performance.

The two can complement each other, but team development is more directly connected to how the team communicates, makes decisions, manages conflict, holds members accountable, and delivers results.

How does CliftonStrengths fit into your team development programs?

We use the Gallup CliftonStrengths® assessment, formerly known as StrengthsFinder, to help team members understand their natural patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

Individual debriefs and the team’s collective strengths profile create a practical foundation for discussing contributions, blind spots, communication preferences, friction points, and how the team operates under pressure. CliftonStrengths is one possible foundation for an engagement; the final design depends on the team’s objectives.

What happens before, during, and after a team development session?

Before the session, we meet with the team’s sponsor to understand the business context, desired outcomes, and current team dynamics. Depending on the program, participants may also complete assessments or participate in individual discovery conversations.

During the session, the team works on its real challenges and develops practical agreements or commitments. Follow-up support can be included to help the team review progress and reinforce the changes it has agreed to make.

Do you offer half-day and full-day team development programs?

Yes. Half-day sessions provide a focused exploration of individual and collective strengths, team dynamics, and practical ways of working more effectively together.

Full-day sessions provide more time to address additional topics such as shared purpose, organizational values, communication, accountability, feedback, decision-making, conflict, and team culture. The content is finalized with the team’s sponsor before the session.

Can team development help a team experiencing conflict or low trust?

Yes, provided that the team and its leader are willing to address the underlying issues openly. We can help teams identify unproductive patterns, discuss their impact, and develop clearer agreements for communication, conflict, and accountability.

Some situations may also require support from HR, mediation, workplace investigation, or another specialized process. We will be transparent if team development alone is unlikely to address the issue.

Can team development be delivered virtually?

Yes. Team development can be delivered virtually or in person. The design, activities, and timing are adapted to the delivery format and the team’s needs.

Satisfied people all over the globe

Our values drive not only our culture and how we work with clients, but also how we live our lives. We partner with our clients.

Reza helped design and implement a rigorous leadership development program at AFCC. The program entailed assessing leaders via Leadership Circle Profile 360 assessment, identifying strengths and development opportunities, creating a detailed development plan, and providing ongoing coaching to help leaders successfully execute the plan. Reza personally coached over 50 employees and leaders in our company. As a result of these initiatives, employee turnover reduced by 100%, and overall leadership effectiveness improved by over 300% over five years, measured by the Leadership Culture Survey. I highly recommend Reza as an executive and leadership development coach without reservation.

Glenn St. OngeHead of HR, Automotive Fuel Cell Cooperation

Reza is an extraordinary ICF, PCC Certified Coach, and facilitator, and I recommend him with the highest recommendations for training and facilitation.

Alvin RosserDirector of Learning, Hogan Lovells

Reza was a part of the team who developed and implemented our team coaching approach for departments to identify thematic goals to support the organizational culture. Once the approach was developed, these are typically short engagements with intact teams, sometimes with a mid-year check-in. I consider Reza to be one of my key thinking partners in the organizational culture work I lead at the port. I particularly appreciate his demeanor which immediately puts clients at ease, his ability to draw on his extensive coaching experience within an organization, and finally his ability to take people deeper in their reflection using a variety of approaches.

Head of HRPort of Vancouver