Bridging gaps in departments of an international organisation
BACKGROUND
Internationally, the organisation has a strong presence with production facilities, subsidiaries, and offices spread across various continents. The company is renowned for its innovative technologies and high-quality products, which cater to a wide range of industrial sectors. We worked with their office based out of India.
TRAINING NEEDS
PRE ASSESSMENT
The core problem was identified not about learning the do’s and don’ts of communication but rather about spending more time collaborating with each other and communicating on a more frequent basis so that they could build deeper relations and be able to freely talk to each other.
Another big issue that was uncovered was that these leaders were all seasoned individuals who had not undergone any training or coaching before so there would be a lot of resistance to both taking in inputs from an external agency and then being ready to implement the changes.
PROCESS FOLLOWED
A full day training session was organized, customized more along the approach of brainstorming rather than educating the HODs, given their years of experience and the mindset to resist change.
We decided to start the day with team bonding activities before getting to the more serious issues that need work so that the team would be more settled into the format of a full day of spending time with and collaborating with each other.
Each specific objective was taken up through different scenarios, activities and case studies, helping the HODs to understand the importance of the techniques that we discussed and how exactly they could implement them into their routines and their team culture.
OBSERVATIONS
As we warmed up and went forward, the participants began to enjoy the day. The role plays were a delight for them – they could see how our team had picked up the specific pain points each of them had been facing and now they had a chance to talk it out with each other at length. One of them gave this open feedback during the session that our team had really understood their issues very well.
Some activities on perspective thinking helped them to see each other’s point of view and this helped them to suddenly get a new way of approaching problems they might be facing with the other departments during various situations. This included both verbal and nonverbal communication, highlighting the importance of body language.
We ended the day with each HOD sharing how they were going to implement the changes that we had together brainstormed within their routine and their departments to ensure smooth functioning of the organisation.
FOLLOW UP
More than that, it helped the trainer to identify why there was a big gap in communication – it was majorly due to a single individual in the team, different from whom the CEO and HR had identified during the pre assessment.
Insightful article on bridging gaps in departments! Your analysis and suggestions are incredibly valuable.
Thank you for your feedback.