Team discovery day

The idea of team away days usually fill most people with dread… The content can often be a cringy endless forced fun experience, with the usual assumption that everyone in the group is extroverted and the content tends to be forgotten the instant it’s over. I think you get the idea I’m not a fan — not everyone wants to be rowdy at 9am in the morning!

Working at Common Good, we still want to have days where we all get together and find a balance of business and play. So how could we do team away days differently for us?

We’ve decided to host two types of days twice a year — one somewhere hot and preferably abroad, and the other more local but outside of the studio. These are fixed dates and you need a pretty good excuse to miss them… They’re also too much fun to miss! The dates are given a year in advance so people are prepped. They are never longer than a few days to not affect project work and be a detriment to the business.

I thought I’d share some of the key activities and learnings here…

Why have one in the first place?

By November last year, Common Good had grown from a team of 4 to a team of 11 in the space of a few months. This kind of growth influences the dynamic culture and ways of working, with the Christmas holidays approaching there was little time to get everyone in the same room and work altogether. Our Away Days are a great way to bring everyone together quickly to learn and share.

Where to host it?

The list of requirements was fairly long, so finding somewhere that satisfied them all was actually quite tricky. Firstly, the space was very important. We are very lucky to work in a beautiful, natural light and airy studio, but it’s still where we work, so getting out of the office was key. A corporate room would have made everyone feel a bit formal and sterile, and a cafe too distracting — for us and everyone else in it! We needed something in-between. Somewhere central to Manchester so the team could get there easily and we could start on time. We needed seats, space to stand and move around, heating (it was November), catering. We found St. John’s Street hotel — part of the Eclectic Hotel Group, this hotel is known for it’s beautiful interiors and excellent food. Their conference room was the perfect size, not too big and had enough space for activities and seats. Food and equipment could be easily organised. Hurray!

Who will facilitate?

Anyone that has ever facilitated a workshop knows that it’s exhausting and requires a lot of planning. A friend of mine even has a presenting wardrobe (comfy trousers and trainers) to prepare for days like these. Ideally, as the facilitator you need to remain slightly external to the team as well. With this combined, it made far more sense to bring in an expert that could help facilitate our day so everyone could actively participate. The lovely Emily Hinks, a freelance creative consultant was a our facilitator for the day. She was fun, full of energy and an excellent guide in taking us through activities.

I also found it to be immensely satisfying to organise something and then have the luxury to relax and be a real part of it.

What did we do?

It was important to decide on a shared goal for the away day. November was about, bringing together a relatively new team, learning some unknowns about each other and explaining and participating in some of the tools we use to build effective teams. The day needed to flow and build. Check ins/outs, energisers and feedback formed the structure of the day. Once you’d added in lunch and other breaks, there was actually very little time for anything else. Three exercises in the morning and two in the afternoon were the perfect amount. By 5pm, everyone was exhausted.

The schedule: Morning

• 3 Things: this is a really simple exercise of getting to know each other. Everyone was asked to draw 3 things about themselves, moving from professional things to the more personal, and then sharing their drawing with the group. Each drawing was of course different and all really interesting.
• History map: often the context of a company gets lost over time. You assumed that everyone knows the story and history of where it all began. This activity allowed the original members of Common Good (John, Aimee and Charlie) to map the timeline of the company and share the story with the whole team. It was amazing to see the growth and challenges that have happened in the past 5 years.
• Stages of group development: high levels of psychological safety and effective, agile teams are things we strive for at Common Good. But all project teams go through a process of development. Using the Susan Wheelan chart as a guide it was really interesting to assess how people felt about being part of Common Good as a whole. Assumptions are always made but the reality can be very different.

The schedule: Afternoon

• Blindfold task: putting up a tent, blind folded, induced lots of comedy right from the start. When 12 eye masks arrived at the office I had difficulty not explaining what they were for. To watching your colleagues fumble around, blatant cheating and then ultimately achieving two perfectly assembled tents at the end of 10 minutes.
• Feedback: we have an interesting relationship with giving feedback at common Good. We like it and try to received it appropriately (it’s a gift!) but find that feedback can often be muted and sometimes not very useful, especially when psychological safety is low. Often half the problem is finding time to do it, so the last session of the day needed to be this.

What to eat?

Percy Pigs, and lots of chocolate……Actually no, pretty much every previous company away day I been on, I’ve come away feeling exhausted, emotionally drained and often feeling slightly ill. Getting the food right was an obvious component. These days require stamina and it needed to be healthy but also regular to get over those classic slump times. This was also a key part of why we chose the hotel as our location good meals and healthy snacks.

What else did we need?

It wouldn’t be a Common Good day without endless stacks of post-its and pens. So we provided stationary for everyone, flipcharts, books, a few more snacks just in case — you never know — and as obvious as it sounds ensured the hotel had the right connectors. Music and sound was also important. We always have something on in the studio and it really is such a powerful tool to alter and enhance mood. Getting the playlist right for the day was high on the priority list — thanks Lucy! (not me, our Lead Researcher)

What did we learn?

After the event we held a session to capture everyone’s feedback. What worked, what didn’t, what was amazing and what was just awful. This served two purposes, one to reiterate to everyone what we did and to use the information for future planning sessions. We use GUBA (good, ugly, bad and amazing) as a framework to share our feedback.

It would have been a very easy mistake to try and cram in as much as possible on these days. However inevitably things never fully run to plan. It’s important to manage time but being militant about it can often interrupt the flow of a task. You need time buffers to let things over run.

The room got too hot at one point and the pace slowed. It took us a while to remember to manage the situation and cool the room down. It helped having a facilitator to remember these things! And having a facilitator made things much more focussed for us. A few Skype calls, a small deck and that’s all the planning we needed to do. Emily was amazing and managed the rest.

It was a great day, full of some enlightening exercises and collaborative tasks. We ended with a few drinks and bowling… and a plan to experience heat in a hot country next time! (Which we did! More on that in my next post.)