Session Synopsis
The recent Team Building session that was a melting pot of cultures, was a very special one for personal reasons. Taking you through the synopsis, stage-wise.
✅The Ask:
This was the first time an intervention of this sort was happening with this multi-cultural team, and they met each other in-person for the first time in about 2 years. So the ask was to keep the session light, more engaging, but at the same time to leave the group with strong messaging. The client was clear that this can’t be a frivolous session; but can’t be extremely loaded and tedious either.
✅Planning and Prepping:
The session was designed as per the initial inputs from the stakeholders, and the concept note was shared. Post that, in the next meeting the dynamics and asks changed , which resulted in re-designing of the session in lieu of the new outcomes and takeaways.
I had to strike a balance between meaningful messaging and takeaways; and keeping it light.
✅The Unique Approach:
To drive the point(s) home without being too overt, the desired learning outcomes and some pain areas mentioned by the Head were put up as visual anchors all through the room, for passive absorption. Intermittently, during learning collation and between group discussions, I asked the participants to make a gallery walk, and look at the Charts.
The visual aids acted as provocation and anchored easy conversations around them, beautifully.
✅ The Grind:
Since this was their hashtag#strategyteam, we subjected them to a few processes that tickled their brains, and brought the team together in fits of laughter. (the Human Machine process yielded such a Eureka! moment which I’m going to tell you about in my next post)
✅ Learning Collation:
In-between the relay circuit, the team quickly collated insights on a chart after each base, so that realisations aren’t lost or forgotten by the end of the circuit. This acted as precursor and input for the larger debrief and collation of individual learning canvases.
✅Connecting the dots
The participants were taken on a self-reflective journey, wherein they pondered upon their experiences and how can they be applied at Individual-Team-Organsation level.
This was followed suit by collation of action plans and learning canvases.
The intervention began with metaphors through ‘Object Dating’ and marked the perfect end with metaphors through ‘Picture Cards’. As the participants shared their learning experiences and journey through the picture cards, it doubled up as feedback and concrete success measures to the intervention.
Happy Participants, Happy Team, Happy Client, Happy Us!
