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Case Study

Away Day Facilitation for Russell Group University

  • Newly formed senior team
  • Strengthening team relationships
  • Collaborating beyond functional boundaries
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The brief

The Registrar of a large university wanted to need to foster stronger connections among Senior Team members. The annual away day was seen as an ideal opportunity to achieve this, especially as there were some new members of the team. The objectives for the day were: to integrate new members into the team, strengthen relationships, and encourage team members to broaden their perspectives beyond their functional areas.

The results

The Senior Team’s annual away day was a success, full of rich conversations, new insights, fun, laughter and debate. It was a memorable day that laid the groundwork for a more cohesive and supportive Senior Team that were better able to tackle future challenges together. There were several positive outcomes:

  1. Enhanced listening and communication: Team members spent more time actively listening to each other, leading to more meaningful conversations and strengthening trust. 
  2. Deeper appreciation of challenges: By sharing their experiences, team members gained a deeper understanding of the various challenges across the professional services team, broadening perspectives beyond their own functions. 
  3. Increased support and collaboration: Listening to each other’s challenges motivated them to find new ways to support each other, breaking down barriers, and enhancing cross-functional collaboration.
“You listened to our wishes in planning the Away Day. I valued the fact that it challenged my assumptions and thinking which made me see things differently.”
Finance Director
Russell Group University

Approach

Working with a trusted co-facilitator, we based our activities around two of their key values: ‘collaborative partnership’ and ‘service excellence’, and we designed a series of activities and discussions that emphasised working in partnership, open communication, and cross-functional understanding.

Our facilitation style was informal, using humour to engage and open up communication. We chose exercises that would engage people both intellectually and emotionally and that would inspire valuable discussions, generate fun and creativity. We created space for people to get to know each other and speak openly about challenges they were facing.

One of the sessions focused on the purpose of the team; we asked them how they learn from each other and how they contribute to the whole team. This created broader conversations about the team as a whole, with new insights about what how they could make small but meaningful changes to how they worked together in future.

Feedback

“Opportunity to learn more about my colleagues and to have conversations in a safe manner.”

“It gave us time to engage with each other beyond simply working together on tasks.”

“It got us to understand each other better and to consider insightful ways of challenging and supporting each other.”

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