Bonding mixed teams during the pandemic.

We needed to understand where gender differences might be creating blind spots.

This organisation is extremely fast-paced and driven. Whilst the culture is generally fun and exciting, the pace can also mean that it’s possible to feel marginalised or unheard at times. We were asked by the leadership team to work with both women and men to enable them to become a really strong team by bringing them closer together, building genuine empathy and helping them understand where gender differences might be creating blind spots.

Together, we devised new and energising protocols to live and work by as a team.

We co-designed two sessions to open up honest conversations, build deep empathy and drive personal and collective growth. Like everything at Shine, it’s just about being human.

It began with a face-to-face workshop where two of our leaders facilitated conversations with the team over the course of a day. The focus was on understanding each other on a much deeper level through values work as well as enabling them to speak candidly about their own experiences and challenges through a series of exercises that focused on exposing toxic behaviours and devising new and energising protocols to live and work by as a team.

Then, as lockdown started to take hold around the world, we held the follow up session virtually using Zoom.

It was a dive deep into culture, gender, and team dynamics.

We had excellent feedback from both sessions, and importantly the takeouts from the virtual session were not that dissimilar to those from the f2f event. Keeping the momentum going has helped the team to continue collaborating closely in these extraordinary times.

“The content, presentation, and facilitators were amazing. Our team was able to engage with the topics and really dive deep regarding culture, gender, and team dynamics. This was bar none the one of the best team engagement days I’ve been a part of!”

“Yesterday’s session was one of / if not the most impactful session I’ve participated in.”

“The timing is impeccable, and your co-leading seamless. As a bonus, the exercises can be used with family – I will this weekend!” 

“I feel like I have done many off site training sessions with different groups, and the two I have done with Shine have been the most genuine and helpful. They really create a setting where people can be open, honest and you really feel like you can get to the heart of problems and you don’t have to beat around the bush or deal with generalities.”