Optimum Performance Teams (OPT)

Our approach

We have over 15 years experience working with many teams at all levels in healthcare.

High performing teams have clear objectives. They have high levels of participation, an emphasis on quality and support for innovation, and provide high-quality patient care. They also introduce innovations in patient care.

The challenge for NHS managers, clinicians and team members is to understand and implement team-based working across their organisations, by developing appropriate communication, education, training and human resource management systems which support team based working. This is where our Optimum Performance Teams Framework can help.

The framework for the Healthskills Optimum Performance Teams (OPT) programme is based on the work of Patrick Lencioni in his definitive guide on how to build and manage successful teams ‘The Five Dysfunctions of a Team’1.  These dysfunctions can be mistakenly interpreted as five distinct issues that can be addressed in isolation of the others. But in reality they form an interrelated model, making susceptibility to even one of them potentially lethal for the success of a team.

The framework is a well documented evidence-based approach to team development which uses practical interventions and tools which can be applied to the five dysfunctions in a relatively short time scale and monitored for effectiveness.

Lencioni states that teams performing optimally:

• Have high levels of trust so that each team member is willing to expose their individual weaknesses and vulnerabilities to other team members without fear of exploitation
• That trust gives team members security to have robust and unfiltered conflict around key ideas
• As a result there is full and collective commitment to plans of action, even if there isn't full agreement, because everyone’s voice has been heard
• There is a culture rather than a system of accountability with peers holding each other to account
• They focus on collective results rather than individual results or status.

Overview of the programme

• Team assessment: to help the team identify current strengths and weaknesses and prepare them for the rest of the workshop
• Trust exercise: Analysis and results of the MBTI profiles (if this option is chosen) to provide deeper understanding of team members and to identify individual differences
• Conflict exercise: Conflict resolution to identify and remove the obstacles that prevent teams focusing on the real issues
• Team direction: establishment of a thematic goal for the team, providing a common sense of purpose and alignment with the goals of the organisation
• Team action planning: The final session will focus on the team establishing a more open forum for feedback, and on securing the key objectives for making positive change and achieving the overall team goal.

1. Lencioni, 2002; The Five Dysfunction of a Team. Jossey-Bass