 |
||
A referral on our behalf was provided to this organization from a past client. The core group that had been assembled to select the winning contractor and ultimately plan the team building event narrowed their list of 10 possible contractors to 3 who would be interviewed. We won the contract partly because of our approach (focusing on the strengths of the organization) and because of the way in which we work (we partner with our clients to co-plan the event/intervention). After winning the contract, we met with the core team again to discuss the particulars of their organization and hopes for their team building event. We wanted to get a background on where they had come from and where they were as well as where they wanted to go. The organization was fairly new (7 years), and had grown from 8 employees to 45 over that time. Although things were quite good, many employees were new and not fully integrated in the culture. There was a desire to allow all employees including the newer employees to get to know each other better, learn a bit about communication and prepare for future changes that were coming. Fun and creativity were at their top of their list. In addition to this, it was recognized that not everyone was aware of their organizational values that had been developed and articulated 4 years ago. The Vice-Presidents wanted to incorporate a session on their values to make people more aware of them and ensure that they were still relevant to their culture now that things had changed so much. After our initial planning meeting with the core team, we designed a 1 ˝ day session to address their needs. We chose to use an Appreciative Inquiry approach and incorporate some experiential team building events. We wanted to build on their strengths and core values and give them an opportunity to dream about their future as it could be with the changes that were coming. The experiential activities would keep the day active and fun, give the participants a chance to get to know each other better, and reinforce the concepts that were being learned.We began with some 'Discovery'. The work of Discovery involved understanding what their core values were, their strengths and their hopes and wishes for the future. We used a World Café process to engage the participants in dialogue about their core values. They were asked to reflect on the organizations core values and tell stories of when they saw them in action. The World Café process enabled people to move about the room interacting with and telling stories to people they don't ordinarily get to work with. These stories really highlighted the fact that they are in fact living their values and a common understanding emerged around the importance and meaning these values had taken on for them. Also part of the work of Discovery was to articulate their strengths. This was accomplished through using a Behaviour profile called DiSC. Each participant completed a self-assessment to identify their preferred behavioural tendencies. The participants then identified what the strengths were of their behavioural tendencies and what value they bring to their team. The participants then paired up to interview each other. They asked each other questions to retrieve stories of when their strengths of their DiSC behaviour profile had played a key role in their success. What they learned from these interviews along with what was learned from their stories about their core values contributed to understanding more about their organization's positive core. Experiential activities in the afternoon helped to deepen this new knowledge and highlight more of their strengths. The focus of the experiential exercises was on change. As the group was successful in the activities, they identified the strategies and characteristics that allowed for their success. This learning was applied to how they wished to be successful with the coming change in their organization. Throughout the activities, their hopes and wishes for their future were captured and added to their positive core display. Their team building retreat concluded with each small team creating a Dream image of their most desired future. This Dream image was a metaphorical representation; an image of how they wished to be impacting the world in the future if they were living according to their core values, if all of their strengths were highlighted and uplifted and if their wishes for their future were brought to life. Suggestions were offered for how the organization might wish to follow-up back at the office and build upon the work that was begun on the retreat. |
