Getting More of What You Want

A highly interactive online and workshop experience designed for an established team to consider and develop their communication styles, to enhance working relationships
The Challenge:
The client wanted a highly interactive workshop which encouraged people to think about their working relationships and had them consider how to develop more confidence and competence in influencing. With no line authority, the participants were responsible for making sure various policies and legislative requirements were introduced and implemented.
This meant dealing with department heads and managers who themselves were under pressure to deliver and thus either directly objected or engaged in passive resistance by not implementing what they had agreed to. This was not universal but some deadlines had been missed and regulatory visits had shown up some inconsistencies.
All participants in the target group were fairly long-serving employees who were reported as being suspicious of new approaches or techniques and generally not convinced they needed to learn anything new – they saw the issue as being with the managers they had to deal with on a regular basis.
The Design:
Rather than create a separate event we connected into a series of regular meetings the group already had. This meant the learning was seen as an extension of the time together rather than going away to learn something new. The challenge was that we were allocated the Friday afternoon slot after a morning spent looking at legislation and policy matters.
We decided to intersperse some very quick inputs (guaranteed 30 minutes) with interactive exercises, reflections and one or two games. The inputs provided theoretical foundations which were designed to be entertaining and humorous but with solid, proven value in influencing situations.
It was agreed that all could choose whether or not to participate in the sessions and that people could choose to leave if they had other commitments – in line with the organisation’s published work/life balance and family-friendly policies which the group was responsible for implementing.
Amazing outcome
What they thought:
“You succeeded in getting a team who hate training to engage, discuss and even enjoy being part of training. I am already seeing the impact in the interactions across the team.”
“The whole session was superb and we are all still buzzing with talk about conversation control maps, behaviour labelling and 14 types of behaviours.”