The City of Chattanooga Housing Division Enhances Team Alignment & Unlocks the Advantage
The City of Chattanooga Housing Division Enhances Team Alignment & Unlocks the Advantage
Industry: Government Agency
Location: Chattanooga, TN
Tactic: Unlocking the Advantage
Results:
Built a common understanding of new service approaches and tools
Developed a vision story for the team with aligned norms
Developed clarity on the organizational structure, roles, and ways of working
The Challenge:
Chattanooga has experienced rapid population growth in the last several years, driving the need for housing development and affordable housing opportunities across the city. As a result, the Housing Division for the City of Chattanooga needed to align the team to critical programs and policy initiatives. To sustain each new initiative, they needed to define fresh departmental processes.
Thus, to achieve this transformation, the Housing Division sought to mature its organizational structure. It was time to develop a teaming approach. In other words, they hoped to unlock the advantage of their team by aligning on a team vision and maturing processes that would empower them to do the work ahead.
Bridge Innovate, experienced in helping teams actualize their full potential, proposed a staff retreat session for the housing division. The retreat would take place over a 1.5-day in-person session and would help the team to achieve the following:
Align on the “Why” behind the need for change
Explore The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team
Build clarity on new team norms
Define a common understanding of the new service approach
Establish new infrastructure processes and tools
Develop a vision story
Establish clarity on the organizational structure & ways of working
Use the GRPI Model to map role transformation(s) and responsibilities
The Solution:
To open the staff retreat, the team sponsors first defined the role of the Housing Division team. They shared the team’s history and outlined the needs facing Chattanooga. They also acknowledged the necessity for change, welcoming their team to invest in a new vision for the division.
Then, over the next two days, Bridge Innovate led the participants through a series of assessments and exercises, including:
The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team
To unlock the full potential of the team, participants completed a personal Five Behaviors Assessment as pre-work for the program. In the session, Bridge Innovate walked the participants through each of the five behaviors to explore what trust, conflict, commitment, accountability, and results look like on their team. Then, using their personal reports, participants analyzed and identified a top behavior for Trust, Conflict, Commitment, Accountability, and Results. With this framework, the team defined their current ways of working together to help shape their new norms.
Cultivating Inspiration and Team Norms
Participants explored the new team norms — Productive Creativity, Connecting with Community, Transparency and Consistency, and Technology Enablement. They gathered inspiration from external sources and other housing websites to define the details of each new team norm, asking “How might it come to life?,” “What is the impact for our community?,” and “What’s needed from our team to be successful?”
Building a Common Understanding From Planning to Service
After exploring team norms, everyone broke into groups to evaluate different service areas of the Housing Division. For each area, they were to define what the process would be from planning to delivering the service. This included describing the policy, planning, priorities, work efforts, and the infrastructure processes and tools needed. They defined why each process was important. They established key activities to provide the service. Then, they noted the impact of the service on the community. Lastly, they stated what the indicators for success would be. Together, they were defining practical steps to improve their processes and reach their team goals.
Understanding Change
Participants learned more about change, exploring insights into how it is personal, transformative, and difficult. Then, using a force field analysis exercise, the team closely considered the changes experienced by their team. The analysis asked them to investigate the rational and emotional drivers for change. They were to look into how rational facts and emotions similarly hinder change. Through the analysis, the team was able to face the change head-on and address what real change would require.
A Vision Story
After acknowledging the change ahead, participants were divided into three groups to create a vision story for the team. This exercise had participants draft a newspaper article about the Housing Division in 2029. They reflected on what’s changed, their impact, and the implications of working together. This exercise empowered the team to cast a vision for their future, motivating them to step into the necessary change and innovation ahead.
Exploring New Roles with GRPI
Finally, to end the two-day session, the team explored the GRPI (Goals, Roles, Processes, and Interpersonal Relationships) model of team effectiveness. Each participant completed an in-depth worksheet about their new role. On the worksheet, they defined SMART goals and measures, their roles, processes, relationships with others on the team, and what would be needed to successfully transition to their new role. They then shared their worksheet with the group, helping to align on their new responsibilities.
The Result:
By the end of the two-day session with Bridge Innovate, the Housing Division team achieved each of the goals outlined for the staff retreat. Each participant left with a deeper understanding of themselves and each other, cultivating a closer team bond as they step into an era of change.
They also left with newly defined team norms. Through the retreat, they found greater alignment on a shared vision for how their team would operate in the years to come. Most importantly, the session resulted in clarified roles and processes for the Housing Division team. With this newfound clarity, they’re empowered to achieve their goals and serve the people of Chattanooga.
Does your team need support to create cohesion and accelerate productive change? Contact Bridge today to unlock the advantage of your team and cast a vision for your team’s future.