Virtual Team Working Training
This bio-pharma company has offices in 70 countries and working in virtual teams is a day to day reality.
Background
The team is a function within the business which has representatives in eight countries, the head office being in California & the regional head office in London. This was an emerging team with no exactly agreed protocols on how to do things. The challenge was that they are very bright people with opinions on how things should be done and the potential for emotional based disagreement was large. Without strong leadership or agreed ways of working a crisis was looming. The leader decided to have a two day session to get the team together.
Need
The principle objective was for the team to agree on how they would work together in the future.
Activity
Dealing with international cultural differences, intellectual differences & political dynamics are each challenging in themselves. Dealing with all three at once is another matter. The agenda was structured in such a way that everyone had a chance to influence decisions and there was a good balance of serious directly work related activity & fun team activity. The latter were used to draw out themes of how people choose to work & the roles they take on.
Outcomes
The session was a huge success with a great many points of conflict removed and a way of working agreed by everyone.
Participant Feedback
“This was a very well facilitated session, we did what we needed to do and Martin held us together.”
Client Comments
We had two clients for this, the HR team who organised it and the senior director who is head of the international team. The head was delighted with the way the session was facilitated and the outcomes. And therefore the HR team was also delighted.