Over the last few weeks I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of a couple of brilliant team days. I’ve been trying to pin down what exactly equates to ‘brilliant’ and my top 5 recommendations for a brilliant team day are…..
- Include everybody. Ensure your day is made brilliant by contribution from a cognitively diverse team that agree on the core purpose yet approach it from a myriad different directions. Bring people together from all corners of your team to generate that brilliance.
- Have a purpose. Ensure that the raison d’etre for the day is writ large. It might be reflective, celebratory or future strategy focussed. Indeed it might be all of those things! But you need clarity and a shared understanding of what you’re all doing there.
- Get together. Having attended brilliant virtual events and brilliant physical events, physical wins out. There’s nothing like being together in close physical proximity for facilitating the flow of discussions and ideas. If you can’t be together physically, put as much planning into your virtual inclusion strategy as your physical.
- Get moving. Use movement to make activities fun and energising. Having people contribute notes to a board and comments on a flip chart is a real leveller. No one is more important than anyone else and everybody’s contribution is captured in the same way and shared in the same way.
- Follow up. In setting your agenda for the day, set it with the end goal in mind. Be clear about what you will do with all of that brilliance you’ve gathered, be clear about who’s going to do what, how you’re going to follow up and by when. Then do it. Next time you have a team day, your people will show up because they will know you value their contribution.
Thanks for including me in your team day. It was brilliant!!