Patrick is an expert at team building. As head of training at Dodeca, an organizational development company headquartered in Paris, he has served hundreds of teams throughout Europe. He aspires to give teams two things: a greater awareness of how they work together and tools to improve their performance.

Of course, different teams have different objectives. New teams need to get to know each other and establish norms. Existing teams

may need to “reinvent” themselves, onboard new team members, or deal with change or conflict.

When working with a team, Patrick first analyzes the team’s needs. Then he designs the workshop, stringing together activities and reflections that will lead a team to insight and new agreements.

Patrick uses the Tuckman model to help team members understand the natural development phases every team goes through: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and Adjourning. (See graphic.) Patrick uses FourSight to help team members understand the essential problem-solving process and their own preferences in it. He uses both Tuckman and FourSight because, he said, “The concepts are simple to understand and expressed without jargon.”

Patrick Duhoux is head of training at Dodeca in Paris, France. Sarah Thurber is author of "The Secret of the Highly Creative Thinker" and Managing Partner at FourSight. 

Patrick believes FourSight helps teams accelerate through the development process. He explains: The FourSight Framework speeds up the “forming” phase by giving new teams a common language and simple process for problem solving. The FourSight assessment eases “storming” by helping team members understand their differences to decipher interpersonal conflicts in an objective way. FourSight speeds the “norming” phase with problem-solving tools and helps teams achieve “performing” by giving team members both self-awareness and process-awareness to solve complex challenges quickly and effectively.

Patrick is not alone in his belief that FourSight catalyzes team development. Independent research, conducted at IBM, shows that FourSight is one of the most effective ways to grow and develop teams, particularly teams that take on complex challenges like innovation. The researchers believed the secret to FourSight’s success is a two-sided approach to team development: the assessment develops personal awareness and collaboration, while the problem-solving framework develops process awareness and complex problem solving skills. So teams with FourSight develop both better teamwork and better solutions.