Enabling people to understand and buy-in to the new vision for a Service organisation and its expected contribution to achieving the Corporate agenda was identified as key in setting a new direction. The overall objective was ‘to provide a teambuilding day for all Service staff to promote a common identity’. There were some key relationship issues between some team members due to a recent amalgamation of two separate teams performing similar functions.

The style of the team day reflected the conviction that the most powerful learning comes through doing. It was a highly active and energetic experience. Participants engaged with one another in short burst activities and longer complex tasks. Most activities were outdoors and provided practical experience of how to develop and maintain themselves as an effective team. After each task participants reviewed and evaluated the process to identify specifically what helped and hindered progress, and how each individual contributed to the process. Participants were encouraged to record the outcomes of these discussions as these can be shared as part of the follow up process back at work.

The nature of the day created an openness and honesty that had not previously been present and the ‘difficult’ team members began to open up to each other.

The result was that everyone felt that the day had allowed them to move forward significantly both in their relationships with one another, and in their sense of who they were now as a single team.