I once ran an offsite exercise where I tasked four cross-functional groups of managers to make four separate items - a horse, a jockey, a stable and a fence. Each group was given a card with the name of the product they needed to make and some basic design requirements - the colour of the horse, the clothes for the jockey, the number of doors and windows for the stable, and the type of panels for the fence. They were also given a mixture of materials and tools to help them complete their tasks - different ones in each group. I told them it was a team challenge and said my co-facilitators and I would be observing their behaviour during the task, and we'd judge their products at the end of the exercise. At the end of the task, I asked them to come up and present their products. When all four groups had finished, I complimented them on the quality of their individual items but then reminded them that it had been a team exercise. I said the objective of the team exercise had been to create a jockey, a horse, a stable and a fence so, as their customer, I wanted to judge how well they all went together. I could hear the pennies slowly dropping before the protests started as we discovered that the jockey was too big for the horse, the stable was too small for the horse and the fence was too high for the stable! Individually, the items were fine, but the overall effect was disjointed - the whole was less than the sum of the parts. They hadn't considered the bigger picture or looked at it holistically from their customer's perspective. They hadn't involved me (their customer) in the contextual design of their products or sought my feedback during the task. They'd chosen to internalise their measures of success and work as individual groups jockeying for position rather than one large team. They'd created their own silos and thrown the problems for the customer over the fence - even though they knew the purpose of the offsite was to encourage cross-departmental working! It was a powerful message - departments in the best organisations work together, not against each other, to improve their overall performance and deliver an optimal customer experience. I ran the exercise at four more offsites and each time it was the same outcome. I'd sworn the earlier participants to secrecy and the first thing they asked their colleagues, when they returned to the office, was "How big was your horse?"! The offsites had the desired effect - a clear commitment from everyone to step outside silos, establish cross-departmental communication channels and work collaboratively as one business. Clients welcomed the joined-up approach and there was an increase in satisfaction levels, cross-sales and retention rates. I hope you find this slide useful. You can check out my full LInkedin article using the following link: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/teamwork-dont-forget-bigger-picture-jon-stephenson

1.  Work together as one team – don’t just jockey for position in your self-imposed silos
 Seek out opportunities to collaborate with each other – optimise your resources
 Build centres of excellence – review processes from your customers’ perspective (outside-in)
 Establish cross-departmental communication channels – sharing ideas and best practice
 Consider the downstream impact of your actions – don’t just throw problems over the fence!
 Involve your customers in contextual designs
– engage them in product and service development
 Check you’re delivering what they want/need
– ensure your horse fits in the stable!
 Measure performance and success holistically
– consider the bigger picture
Customer Experience – don’t forget the bigger picture!
Jon Stephenson
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/stephensonjon