Team Resiliency
Five Part  Online Course

Doing Teams Well

One of our main MCA emphases over the years has been on helping to strengthen teams. Here is training course that we have developed on Team Resiliency, primarily for faith-based (Christian) workers in the humanitarian, mission, and development sectors. One of the distinctive marks of materials that are relevant for Christian workers is the inclusion of references to Christian Scriptures as well as authors throughout history who write about life, wellbeing, spiritual growth etc. from a Christian perspective. Using materials from various sectors and non-faith sources is also very important for our team building work.

Team Resiliency
This is a five lesson course developed in 2010. Each session takes about an hour and can be done on one’s own or preferably as a team/group, with additional time for interaction and discussion. The first four lessons consists of a short audio lecture with notes, a handout, and a core article. Lesson five is a summary power point and case study handout (all five lessons are in separate zipped files, accessed below).

The course is not intended to be comprehensive yet it does go over many of the main items related to team wellbeing and effectiveness (WE). What characterizes strong teams? What goes wrong with teams? What are the responsibilities of team leaders and members for maintaining the team? How can we use team building tools? In short,  the course helps us to look realistically at the challenges, strategies ,and skills for “doing teams well”.

Course Syllabus and Suggested Readings
Lesson 1: Introduction and Team Characteristics
Lesson 2. Team Health and Dysfunction
Lesson 3. Team Leaders and Member Care
Lesson 4. Team Building and Managing Conflict
Lesson 5: Pulling It All Together