Cala Homes, the UK’s Housebuilder of the Year in 2012, celebrated record success and growth in 2013. Significant recent investment and expansion allowed the company to create ambitious but achievable growth plans and, as part of their drive to create an innovative and forward looking culture they asked RSVP Design to support a new type of annual staff conference. The desire was for an interactive event, to replace the traditional ‘information briefing’ that had been organised in previous years.
The briefing took place on separate days in two locations for the staff based in England and in Scotland, with the larger Scottish event being attended by almost 200 people. The theme that was identified was ‘thinking differently’. Built into this were three key messages:
- look for small innovations that move things forward in a positive and productive way
- explore ways of improving performance by seeking new solutions to old problems
- work across teams and perceived boundaries to share information and organisational learning.
RSVP Design integrated three table top activities into the design of the day, ensuring that the key messages from speakers in the senior management team were illustrated in practice during the activities. The day opened with every participant taking part in a simple and entertaining practical task in which pairs of people were connected by rope links and challenged to find a way of freeing themselves within the rules of the activity - harder than it sounds! As pairs found correct solutions, the learning was passed around the room until everyone had completed the task successfully. This was a lively opening to the day, raised energy levels and illustrated the importance of sharing learning in order to achieve organisational success.
A second activity, ‘Seeing the Point’, further illustrated how individuals and teams can limit their thinking by looking for obvious solutions and how, with some creativity and a willingness to experiment, can achieve ‘more with less’.
The final exercise, RSVP Design’s Simbols exercise, became a competitive challenge as 9 teams aimed to problem-solve and organise the implementation of their solutions against the clock. A degree of enjoyable but productive chaos ensued and a number of the teams proved that even in difficult environments, good communication, teamwork and a carefully developed and well-organised strategy will deliver success.
The feedback from the event was that it was engaging, motivational and coherent and that the activities reinforced the positive messages that ran through the business content of the rest of the day.
Further Information
To learn more about how we can help you to integrate or facilitate powerful, experiential learning activities in your training, please contact sales@rsvpdesign.co.uk or call +44 141 561 0387
