The Senior Publishing Management Team at the Institute of Physics Publishing had three new members and wanted to make sure the team was aligned behind a clear purpose and bringing each member's individual strengths to the forefront. A one-day team building workshop in Bristol combined a pre-workshop survey with the User Manual and Team Canvas frameworks.
We were approached by a publishing company looking for an experienced dynamic facilitator to work with a team of senior managers for a half day using behavioural tools.
After a series of telephone briefings and conversations about the team in question, it became clear that rather than using behavioural tools or personality profiles, the client particularly liked our idea of letting the team agree what was important to them and what approach they wanted to use for working together – and that this would be key to gain their buy-in to the importance of continually developing as a team, not just individually.
Our brief as a team facilitator was to help them:
To capture their progress working together as a team, we surveyed the group ahead of the day, asking them each individually how they think the team is working currently. We will then repeat that same survey again 3 months on to see if there’s any measurable improvement.
The survey included rating scale questions (i.e. score 1-10) such as:
We also asked for more detailed insight, asking open questions like:
In the workshop itself, we started out by exploring the team’s purpose (why the team exists, why it is needed) and culture (how the team works together and the values, norms and behaviours that are expected).
Participants reflected on these questions:
We then moved on to use two frameworks to help organise the group’s discussions and insights: the User Manual and Team Canvas.
The workshop was well received by participants, who appreciated the chance to come together to reflect on their individual and collective strengths.
We have since worked with the same team on several more occasions to help them explore upcoming trends and strategic opportunities.
The most useful framing for team work with new members is that the team is being reformed rather than reinforced. Each new arrival changes the chemistry. Pretending otherwise, and treating the new members as a graft onto an existing team identity, is the most common reason these days fail to land.
Combining a pre-workshop survey with a repeat survey three months later turns the work into a measurable intervention rather than a one-off event. Antonia's feedback specifically called out the subtle and observant facilitation style, which is the right register when the goal is to let the team learn about each other rather than be told what to do. The lesson worth recording: with senior teams, the lighter the facilitation hand, the more durable the alignment.
Most work like this starts with a 30-minute call to understand the team, the context, and what good would look like. From there we agree the shape of the work together.
