 A magical day in the woods for a leadership forum of 50 leaders from POhWER, an advocacy charity. The aim was to reconnect the executive team, management team and team leads with each other after a time of change, and to work together on the organisation’s challenges for the year ahead. Client: POhWER Location: Woodland, South London Group size: 50 Who they are POhWER is a charity set up to effect change by providing advice, support and advocacy to people who experience disability, vulnerability, distress and social exclusion. Their leadership team's culture, context and challengesPrior to working with us, there had been a lot of change. People had strong feelings about it and in some parts of the organisation there had been resistance to the change programme, which had led to a polarised culture and tension among certain groups. A group of staff were not exercising agency and were pushing decisions and solutions upwards. This meant that people were not working together to address challenges. In addition, the cost of living crisis was putting pressure on some staff and that, combined with the continual drip of bad news in the world, was exacerbating mental health issues. POhWER came to us to help them start to change mindsets and culture. Aims and objectives for the leadership dayWe worked with the CEO to co-create a theme of 'better together' and to come up with practical ways leaders could support each other through challenging times. The aims were to:
How working together in Nature improved team cultureThe bluebells were out in force in the woods. The thunderstorms that were forecast never materialised, in fact there was barely a drop of rain and the sun shone for almost the whole day. Around the fire the leaders visibly relaxed, made connections, had fun and got to know each other better, and workplace tensions faded away. It was a magical day. After introductions and icebreakers, we ran a symbols exercise to help people think differently about how they could be a stronger, more aligned team. The group came up with creative ideas really quickly. They made strong and meaningful symbols for being better together, ranging from a beehive to a bridge sculpture. They were collaborative and playful. In the afternoon’s workshop session, as well as helping the group bring out combined thinking on their theme of how to be better together using a stop, start, continue process, we also introduced “What would Nature say?” to their inquiry. This led to some interesting ideas and insights from the group. Nurturing leadership and team connectionsWe used a stop, start, continue structure. The ‘stops’ were about doing too much, ‘starts’ were about celebrating, sharing, and decluttering tech, ‘continues’ included nurturing passions, kindness and sharing good news. As well as coming up with practical ways to protect time, share information, be happier and collaborate better, I was particularly struck by one group who proposed tying in planning themes to seasons of the year. Taking inspiration from Nature, this is how they envisaged it working (and it didn’t mean these things can’t happen at other times):
How the leadership day helped the POhWER teamThe woods did their job. The leaders listened to each other, were open and supportive. Shared values were evident. People got to know each other better, and spoke about connection with colleagues and the importance of that. Our before and after surveys showed that their employee net promoter score (eNPS) - a valuable glimpse into the level of how happy, engaged, and motivated your workforce is - improved from -12.7 to +17.9, a shift of 30 points! A good indication that the day had worked and that people felt happier and more connected to the organisation. What people said: “I now feel more connected to people across the organisation,” “I learnt how interdependent all teams are and there is a need for more joined up working,” “I re-learnt what a fantastic team we are at POhWER.” Want something like this for your leadership team?Our mission at School of the Wild is to help organisations transform their teams and learn to work together better, by inspiring a positive and collaborative workplace culture. We believe that Nature brings out the best in people so we bring leaders and teams outside to help you reconnect and think differently. Have a look at our outdoor team building away days, company offsites, and leadership development programme or get in touch for more information. Comments are closed.
|
Author & CuratorNigel Berman is the founder of School of the Wild. |
RSS Feed
Leaders
|
About Us
Support |
|
