How The Learning Bar created a connected, cohesive & collaborative team.
The Learning Bar challenges the status quo of education through their unique assessment frameworks which focus on all parts of a child’s wellbeing and learning outcomes.
The Newcastle-based team works with educators, and communities to improve equality and equity, and give all children the chance to thrive. The Learning Bar recognises the importance of fostering a culture of collaboration and supporting the continuous development of their people.
Following a period of expansion, people changes and a range of new projects & products launching, the team was having to navigate many competing priorities.
The Learning Bar’s senior leadership identified a need to support the team work better together, align their ways of working and help them become a more high performing team. It was critical to support the team to use the same tools, resources, systems & processes. It was also important that everyone felt clear on how to appreciate and leverage each other’s style, skills & strengths.
While the business had previously utilised personality profile assessments as part of its induction program, the evolving nature of the business demanded a more dynamic & practical tool to help them leverage the diversity in the team & communicate with impact.
“We decided that we needed help! We were completely immersed in the business and it was clear we needed external support. We wanted to align our team. We wanted to ensure everyone was very clear on their role and responsibilities. We wanted everyone to feel comfortable to speak up and ask for what they needed.”
Fiona Dyke - Senior Director
To address these challenges, Jacky worked with the Senior Leaders of The Learning Bar to design and implement a series of engaging, and impactful team development workshops. The workshops were carefully curated to align with the culture of the organisation and the specific challenges they were facing at the time. Jacky designed and facilitated the following sessions:
1. A half-day 'Team Reset' Workshop
- Focused on defining roles, responsibilities, and deliverables.
- Explored the purpose of their roles and how they each measured success.
- Conducted a customer analysis; looking at needs and pain points.
- Unpacked the challenges they faced in their role and ways to address them.
- Discussed how being a psychologically safe team could help them perform.
2. A two-day Strategic Offsite focusing on collaborating, communicating and creating together
- Defined high performance and created an action plan to help them lift their game.
- Completing their Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument® (HBDI) self-assessments.
- Debriefed thinking style profiles and preferred ways of communicating, problem solving and decision making.
- Engaged in creative activities to explore how to communicate with impact.
- Created their own User Guides to highlight their skills, strengths and work satisfiers.
“6 months on, we can still see the payoffs. The ability for people to stop and ask for more information is now the new normal. Projects are planned and aligned and everyone is clear on the tools & resources to use. Team members step up and step in and the culture in the office is comfortable and collaborative.”
Allison Blanco, Managing Director
The Learning Bar’s commitment to fostering team alignment and self-development through workshops resulted in tangible benefits, including improved teamwork, enhanced accountability, and a more collaborative team culture.
Jacky Morgan’s unique capacity to confidently engage stakeholders, discover the root causes, coach leaders, communicate concepts, design strategies and facilitate change makes her a highly valuable consultant for any organisation seeking to create a successful and sustainable team.