Team preparation for the exercise is to read the 'Giving feedback' page on the website and print off copies of the Giving and receiving feedback in a team sheet. You'll need enough for every team member to have a copy of each.
You might also want to agree some team ground rules as a useful start to the session. Find out more about how to do this, and see a fairly typical set of ground rules here.
The exercise
You have two possibilities here - a dipping your toe in the water one and a more systematic approach.
The easier option is straightforward. Looking though the 'Giving feedback' briefing page and the Giving and receiving feedback in a team sheet discuss, as a team, how well you think you do, and how your team could improve. Just go through the points on both sheets and review the best starting point for your team to make some changes.
A more thorough approach
If you want to be a bit more systematic about it, ask each team member to score the team on the Giving and receiving feedback in a team sheet. The spectrum of possible scores range from -40 for a very dysfunctional team through to +40 for a team that has full, candid and constructive discussions.
Average the scores for all members of your team and discuss the results. Where do you need to improve? Do you need to move from being a team where people don’t hold each other to account for team performance into the area of managing to have those discussions - even if they are difficult at first? Or is you first task to stop some people from being too aggressive or too personal? This conversation should enable you to progress to a broader discussion of your team dynamics.
It is the team leader’s responsibility to shift the team toward the positive end of the feedback spectrum. It should be easy enough in a mid-scoring team to improve by agreeing how to give each other feedback using the giving constructive feedback guidelines.
You may need to seek more expert help (from your own organisation or from an external coach) if your team is right down at the negative end of the spectrum or if the situation feels beyond your current skill level. Developing better inter-personal dynamics will produce better team decision-making and a higher performing team, but working on relationships can seem a bit daunting at first.
Write down some action points for yourself and/or for the team.
Practice this new behaviour every day for the next three weeks.
At the end of each week, spend a couple of minutes reviewing (individually or as a team) whether you are making the required changes to your behaviour. Put the review time in your calendar to remind yourself to do it.