The Overview
Background
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) sets the standard for responsible forestry worldwide. To achieve this, the organisation supports, manages and nurtures a diverse ecosystem of stakeholders. With people at the heart of the work they do, they have created a culture where people are passionate and committed to making a difference and contributing to the organisation’s inspiring purpose. Having worked with Primeast previously Marc Jessel, Chief Systems Integrity Officer, approached our team to support him with the design and delivery of their annual team retreats – a vital opportunity for the team to come together, develop and agree actions to support their strategic goals for the year ahead.
The Brief
What The Client Asked For
The purpose of the team sessions for 2024, was to onboard and set the tone for new members, providing opportunity to connect, explore team dynamics and put the foundations in place to become a high performing team. The agreed objectives for the programme were :
- To acknowledge the growth of the Systems Integrity Team and welcome latest members
- To review Tuckman’s stages of team development in the context of a growing team and facilitate discussion on the implications for new members.
- To take stock of team strengths, and integrate and orientate new members.
- To explore the opportunity presented by team strengths and how this could positively impact team dynamics.
- To understand the features of high-performing teams.
- To consider the value of guiding principles for behavioural tuning.
- To identify opportunities to grow team effectiveness
- To own and agree actions going forward.
The Solution
What We Delivered
Primeast designed and facilitated a two day team development session which included the following activities:
- exploration of Primeast’s PrimeFocus framework, and applying this to enhance team alignment
- review of the current stage of team development using Tuckman to include new team members
- completion of the Leadership Circle assessment which was used for exploring team strengths and opportunities presented as a result for developing team effectiveness
- coaching walks using the natural environment as a backdrop – with the objective to explore the team’s most pressing challenges and to explore how every team member could foster collaborative working
- a “Tree of Talking” exercise where each team member made performance-enhancing commitments that were affirmed by their colleagues, encouraging accountability for actions and commitments
The Results
What We Achieved
Feedback was captured 2 months following the event, from the programme sponsor, Marc Jessel:
1.Significant improvement on how the team perceives its role and function.
2.Accelerated on-boarding of new team members enhancing their personal performance and that of the wider team.
3.Enhanced intra-team communications.
4.Greater understanding and utilisation of team member strengths.
5.Delivery of or progress on personal commitments made (as confirmed at subsequent team review).
"System Integrity Team Retreats have become a much-appreciated annual component for the maintenance and enhancement of our effectiveness. Primeast always works with us in partnership to design interventions that deal with our most pressing current challenges and enable us to serve FSC, our global stakeholders and the world’s forests to the best of our ability.”.
