Farscape Development — Reach Your Goals Faster

Case Study Synergy Health

Synopsis

Following a leadership team development programme working in partnership with Farscape, Synergy Health’s leadership team are now saving £65,000 because of improved communication, enhanced trust and more effective project planning.

Background and Context

Synergy Health’s IT Leadership Team had been through significant change.  Initially based in different offices, the majority of the team moved to the same office and this highlighted challenges with trust, communication and team effectiveness.  The Head of IT calculated that rework (as a result of communication challenges) was costing each manager at least 1.5 hrs a day of management time. This gave 360 wasted days a year across the whole team which equated to one and a quarter managers – a cost of £65,000.  The Head of IT therefore recognised an urgent and important need to develop the leadership team’s effectiveness, cohesiveness and communication skills in order to stop this significant loss in terms of time and money.

The Farscape Learning Experience

After considering the challenges faced by Synergy Health, Farscape designed and delivered a Team Development programme which focused on and included:

• Individual and team profiling using the Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI) in order to enhance individuals’ understanding of how to communicate effectively with people who have different motivations and values to them;
• Exploration of behaviours in team work and leadership, in order to highlight the importance of self awareness; relationships with others; and flexibility in leadership styles;
• Creating a challenging and emotionally engaging programme in order to push delegates outside their comfort zones and give them an opportunity to experiment with different leadership techniques in unfamiliar situations. These were then related back to the context of the workplace at Synergy Health.
• An outdoor Learning Experience, designed to create opportunities for team work, leadership and feedback in an exacting environment in order to enhance self awareness and drive forward performance;
• Individual feedback about performance, including key strengths and areas for development.  This was fed into Personal Development Plans and is being driven forward by managers at Synergy Health;
• Practicing different skills and techniques to identify what styles are appropriate for different people and situations.
• Giving and receiving feedback about individual and team performance in order to practice having difficult conversations;
• Reflecting on personal attitudes and behaviours in order to identify where changes need to be made to improve performance (including creating a personal action plan).
• Group action learning follow up designed to focus on the transfer of learning in the workplace and to focus on specific leadership team challenges at Synergy Health.

It was great to see you all in operation last week and I think I speak for the whole team when I say it was the best team development session we’ve had and will inevitably add a lot of value in the coming months. 

Adil Jan, Head of IT, Synergy Health What were the outcomes?

• A more open environment now exists which has led to a much healthier atmosphere in the office. Staff are more motivated as they see their managers more relaxed and open and everyone makes time out of their day to sit down and speak to each other which has created a more agile leadership team.
• The leadership team have learned to trust each other so collaboration occurs without any push.  Managers are letting go of projects and trusting each other to deliver the results that are needed.  This in turn has led to a more positive experience for customers as they only have one point of contact, simplifying communication and reducing time delays and errors.
• Members of the leadership team have a greater understanding of each other’s strengths, weaknesses and communication styles and are able to adapt their own approach to get the most out of the people they are working with.  This new approach has led to project conflicts and problems being identified early with plenty of time for contingency planning, saving significant time and resources in the long run.

The learning was not only a great experience but empowered everyone as we all felt engaged. There's no distrust which means morale has gone up, there's much more engagement because the team are not afraid to ask or challenge and we've built stronger bonds which means every one of us has been able to achieve more since returning. When I eventually move on I'll not only be taking the lessons we learnt as a team but the concept of experiential learning to other environments. It's really changed my perspective on learning in the workplace! 

Adil Jan, Head of IT, Synergy Health