Tiger Teams Achieves Rapid Team Success

Background:
Jonathan Boyers, a business leader and senior manager at a global Corporate Consultancy faced the challenge of assembling a new sales team from existing cross-functional members of staff at various levels in the business. There was limited sales experience within the new team and a no clear alignment around strategy. Complicating matters further, the majority of these individuals had not previously worked together, a number didn’t even know each other. Jonathan knew he needed to create a strong team dynamic and gain support with shaping cohesive sales strategy in order to achieve success.

The Situation:

Jonathan was met with some hesitancy amongst his new team members to engage in this change, he felt that it would take at least nine months to affect the level of change he needed. He also recognised that if he could not make this work then his career would be compromised. Jonathan had been recommended to Tiger Teams via an associate and approached them with his challenge.

The Solution:

Tiger Teams designed and ran an event for Jonathan and 14 senior partners and directors from different functions of his new team in the Lake District. The event was a great success and Jonathan asked Tiger Teams to run a similar subsequent event for 30 additional staff members. The event was tailored to Jonathan’s needs. Ahead of the events, one to one discussion between Jonathan and Tiger Teams’ CEO, John Peck, were held to attain Jonathan’s aims. Participants also completed online profiling and insight gathering tools, designed to profile the participants and tease out what was standing in the way of the team’s success. The results were shared during the events to give them informed content to work on.

The events were designed to combine indoor group work and outdoor activities to create conditions where rapid and enduring bonds would be forged within the team. The teams adeptly navigated challenges at a personal level, within the ‘classroom’ and when faced with physical discomfort, such as cliff abseiling in adverse weather conditions.

‘Some of the team were quite a long way outside their comfort zone. We had people sharing some quite intimate stuff which was key for the strength of the team. They really threw themselves into it and there was a real sense of achievement and comradery.’ Jonathan Boyers

Each of the events were run over 2.5 days and had three key elements:
• Leadership Development: Participants engaged in indoor sessions followed by practical outdoor activities, affording opportunities for leadership skill demonstration and personal growth. Each participant emerged with a personalised action plan tailored to enhance their leadership performance.
• Team Building: Emphasis was placed on transitioning the team away from a silo mentality towards a unified, high-performance collective. Through various exercises and discussions, barriers were dismantled, and strong bonds were forged, culminating in a cohesive and high performing team.
• Business Development: Participants were divided into sub groups and tasked with addressing their real-world business challenges. These exercises fostered innovative thinking and problem-solving, ensuring tangible outcomes for the organisation.

Jonathan himself was pivotal to the process. With Tiger Team’s support, he took the reins and led the teams through to a very successful conclusion.

The Impact:

Having started the process with a belief that it would take around 9 months to achieve the results he needed, Jonathan was seeing lasting transformation happen in days. The events proved highly successful, yielding an energised and collaborative team profoundly committed to shared goals. Beyond the events, Jonathan experienced a substantial personal and professional acclaim, with his leadership acumen garnering newfound respect and admiration within the company.

‘The payback for me personally as a leader was amazing because it meant I created a team very quickly and my own personal credibility within the company increased significantly. Those teams were really strong teams afterwards. It was quite remarkable. I haven’t done many things where the bonding was as effective.’ Jonathan Boyers