Engaging remotely- latest Experience!

Fresh from running the Webinar on Friday, a massive learning point for me and I hope others on the call, I was connecting with a team of 12 in India for an hour to discover challenges and opportunities for them and the close teams they work with. Equally important a chance to bring the team together in a healthy chat around what everyone is doing. It was a part of a two team event and so a chance to weave into the other agenda items which proved useful in terms of the mindset the team were in when the time came.

Preparation in advance

Let's just say there are challenges presented by this style of facilitation and I'll be delving into that with a follow-up reflection of 2-good 2-bad. I was fortunate in this case that whilst I was unable to see the team in the room I had a proxy-me as my eyes and ears. I think it's essential there is a good shared understanding between remote-me and proxy-me in the room to sustain the flex required when messaging isn't flowing freely. I was happy with proxy-me in the room that tolerances would maintained whilst staying in the fit-for-purpose parameters. I had provided proxy-me with the Big Picture kit described below carried in one of our natty pizza boxes and deployed in the room as the session began. Without proxy-me and physical kit in the room it's just not as much fun in terms of setting up for success!

The Session Plan

Act 1- 20 mins. Starting with the basics

Basics of smalltalk and introductions (another theme from the Webinar) and a prompt to put their name at the top left of the page. As an unfamiliar voice in the room, able to see me but not me them, then direction to the top of the page where we think about the purpose of the team, not the business in this case, due to the focus of the session.

Each individual has an A2 Big Picture page, 2x Customer and 2x Team sticker:

With some orientation from me on the template they identify and make notes of who the Team provides value too (in effect the Customer for the team), identify themselves as an individual with one Team symbol and a team they work closely with using the other Team symbol.

Take-away: Everyone shares their own point of perspective x12 in a team context.

Act 2- 20 mins. Focusing down on key elements relating to the team

They are invited to buddy-up with another team member with a different symbol and between them compare their respective points of perspective and on one of them add both the additional stickers they have once I've explained what each of them represent.

Each individual has an additional sticker equal mix of Measure, Tech, Money or Process.

Take-away: Gets the conversation going by developing x6 shared views.

Act 3- 20 mins. Challenges and Opportunities for the team going forward

Staying in their pairs to zoom into Challenges and Opportunities- which are stickers given to them by the proxy me in the room.

Agree a Challenge and Opportunity which I think will be influenced by the combination of stickers they have had. with more time there are creative ways to do this but let's keep in simple! Aim to split this 10 mins doing and 10 mins sharing back across the group.

Take-away: A shared view of the Challenges and Opportunities facing the team.

Feedback from client initially informally ".. everyone said they really enjoyed that, I’ll take some pictures of the sheets and send back over! .. we did a mop up and picked out our opportunities and I'll be baking these into our objectives for next year". We continue to prove that it is possible to create the buzz and intensity by carefully plotting your path around the human need foremost and the guidance via tech separately. I'll be following up with my own 2-good 2-bad reflections once I've had more formal feedback.

If you have teams working remotely and you want them to come together for a damn good listening to please do get in touch to see how we could help make it so!