On Saturday 19th November I conducted a team training day for the Board of Directors and staff of an Arts centre here in Bristol. It was the first of three planned sessions for a team from varied professional backgrounds, entering a new and challenging phase in the centre’s life. Most members had not worked together before, and the task was to provide an opportunity to understand one another. And then to establish what the next immediate steps might be. And to have some fun in the process!
It is so crucial for any team to understand what is important to them, individually and collectively, if they are to work together well. The centre is a community facility with a broad sweep of projects and services, a long history and large Grade 2 listed premises to maintain and develop. The skills and knowledge required by this team were diverse. I felt they needed a clear common ground to help them move forward.
So I concentrated on the vital issue of values. Working out what we hold dear – and why – is not a straightforward task. An ice-breaker exercise demonstrated how easily miscommunication can occur unless we understand what each person means by, for example, the word ‘control’ or ‘integrity’. I then used a series of value elicitation and value prioritisation exercises to help eight very different people “drill down” to a handful of shared, core values.
The vital by-product, of course, of these exercises was the dialogue generated between the team members. Talking about values involves honesty and risk, and resistance and engagement. There was frustration and surprise, and at times so much discussion that the team had to be pulled firmly onto the next task! It also facilitated the team to direct the remainder of the session themselves, and use this time to draw out what they wanted from the next two months together; and also what they wanted from future coaching sessions.
The day was considered by the team members to be essential, inspiring, and extremely enjoyable. Our next session together is planned for mid- January, so I’ll keep you up-dated with how things develop.