Workshop Culture

What if every day at work felt like your team’s most productive ‘away day’?

The most successful and innovative teams and organisations are highly collaborative, creative and productive – you will find the principles of great workshops infused throughout their culture.

This is a book about how running great workshops, and taking inspiration from them, can lead to a great team environment. Workshop Culture will show you how to create a happy and engaged team through small actions which lead to big results. It features a practical and accessible toolkit to help improve your team’s performance and productivity.

Workshop Culture gives you:

• Inspiring case studies from forward-thinking and innovative teams that have found success from a workshop culture
• A structured methodology that you can follow to bring more happiness, productivity and engagement to their team
• Practical exercises to help you build new skills and knowledge, and increase their impact at work

Alison Coward is a team culture coach and consultant, founder of Bracket, a consultancy that partners with ambitious, forward-thinking companies to build high-performing, collaborative team cultures.

What if every day at work felt like your team’s most productive ‘away day’?

The most successful and innovative teams and organisations are highly collaborative, creative and productive – you will find the principles of great workshops infused throughout their culture.

This is a book about how running great workshops, and taking inspiration from them, can lead to a great team environment. Workshop Culture will show you how to create a happy and engaged team through small actions which lead to big results. It features a practical and accessible toolkit to help improve your team’s performance and productivity.

Workshop Culture gives you:

• Inspiring case studies from forward-thinking and innovative teams that have found success from a workshop culture
• A structured methodology that you can follow to bring more happiness, productivity and engagement to their team
• Practical exercises to help you build new skills and knowledge, and increase their impact at work

Alison Coward is a team culture coach and consultant, founder of Bracket, a consultancy that partners with ambitious, forward-thinking companies to build high-performing, collaborative team cultures.

Foreword

Part one: Identifying the problem

Chapter 1: The problem The illusion of collaboration Intro: my experience & about this book What is a Workshop Culture? The challenge of true collaboration A collaboration mindset The hard work of soft skills Are you ready to collaborate?

Chapter 2: The impact of the problem Intro: why are you implementing a Workshop Culture? Lack of engagement Happiness and engagement High-performance (creativity and productivity) Happy culture, high-performance – not mutually exclusive Bad meetings Bad meetings waste time and money Meetings impact performance Meetings impact how we feel about our work Change your meetings, change your culture Lack of purpose For wellbeing, happiness and engagement Balancing the team and the individual What this all means for the individual

Chapter 3: The solution Intro: It starts with you The role of a change(-ing) agent What you can control and what you can’t Workshop Principles 1. Facilitation ‘There’s something about facilitation’ 2. Strategic Thinking ‘Strategic thinking: important, but not urgent’ 3. Design ‘Designing for culture change’

Chapter 4: Why workshops are the solution Intro: why great workshops make great team cultures True collaboration Facilitation Equal contributions and engagement Open communication and visible progress What great workshops create Curiosity, learning and experimentation Responsive, emergent, and iterative Tolerance of ambiguity, uncertainty, and mess Evaluate your meetings Part two: Workshop Culture methodology

Chapter 5: Introducing Workshop Culture Intro: intro to the four foundations, and the methodology What is a Workshop Culture? What does it mean? What does it look like? What does it feel like? What does it achieve? The four foundations of a Workshop Culture Foundation 1: Workshops are more than a one-off event Foundation 2: A constant balance between creativity and productivity Foundation 3: Make tiny tweaks, not sweeping changes Foundation 4: A Workshop Culture is designed If you can run great workshops, you can implement a Workshop Culture You’re already ready Preparing for a Workshop Culture Guiding your team towards and through a Workshop Culture Embedding a Workshop Culture

Chapter 6: The bigger picture Dynamic and fluid teams Your unique team and context The mindset of a dynamic team The value of a growth mindset Setting your team’s direction: alignment, clarity and purpose Team purpose for motivation Team alignment as empowerment – the big picture Ambitious thinking for your team What workshops can teach us about big picture thinking What to focus on Thinking fast and slow How to run a Big Picture Thinking session Strategy development – ideas into action Back to life, back to reality The psychology of goal setting Setting clear goals as a team Crystallizing team values Should collaboration be a team value? What good values look like and how to design them Translating values into behaviour

Chapter 7: Self-awareness Understanding self-awareness Research-backed reflection The reflection habit The benefits and limitations of personality tests Individual productivity, team performance Developing your productivity systems Positive impact on the organisation – shift in power and responsibility Techniques for reflection and feedback Building the empathy muscle to harness diversity and resolve conflict Collective empathy Empathy helps us to appreciate diversity Using empathy to resolve conflict The collective impact of self-awareness Self-awareness supports mutual growth Self-awareness supports business growth Self-awareness creates better humans

Chapter 8: Meetings and workshops Change your meetings, change your culture Facilitation skills for everyone Not just better meetings – better communication How to encourage more facilitation in your team The responsibility of a meeting facilitator Providing autonomy and agency Supporting open conversations Avoiding workshop and meeting fatigue Make your meetings more workshop-like Purpose, outputs and questions Designing meetings and workshops Applying strategic thinking to planning meetings and workshops Facilitation techniques to improve your meetings Managing the conversation Breakout groups and individual thinking Visual thinking A holistic look at our meetings Meeting rhythms for team effectiveness “Workshop Culture” sessions What happens after your meetings?

Chapter 9: Designing ways of working Your team culture is a product in development Teams are dynamic Team culture as a product development and innovation Design thinking approach for your team A new ambitious vision for your team The elements you are designing for Autonomy Transparency Healthy conflict Psychological safety Routines and rituals over “teambuilding” How routines and rituals support team culture Why develop routines and rituals? How to design rituals and routines. Team flow – the ultimate aim. What does team flow look like? Is it possible? The jazz band Designing for team flow – learning from workshops Time alone and time together Team communication: Visual task management Asynchronous and synchronous communication Storing and sharing information Social connection Hybrid and remote teams Productivity for teams and time management Our growing to-do lists Projects and workflow Decision-making and prioritisation Balancing productivity with creativity

Chapter 10: Managing change Change is hard so we need to manage it From change management to change The psychology of change Remember the role of motivation Initiating change Knowing what to change Low impact, high effort Marginal gains Kaizen Tools and techniques to manage change, habit development How to start a new habit Implementation intention – scheduling change Habit stacking Tiny habits Changing your environment Creating systems to sustain change The challenge of consistency Accountability and tracking systems Integrate it into your wrk Test and iterate The Workshop Culture programme The framework –- a review The role of workshops Training and skills development Coaching – individual and team

Part three: Adopting a company-wide Workshop Culture

Chapter 11: Leadership A shift in leadership style – what we need from leaders and the top of organisations Unlearning leadership What are the skills for Workshop Culture leadership Difficult conversations Linking culture to business performance The business case for culture Measuring culture and methods Workshop Culture assessment tool Strategic planning and decision-making Inclusive strategy development Emergent strategy Long-term strategy over short-term results Values and decision-making Org design and structures Does your org structure support collaboration or competition? Org structure as your competitive advantage Different types of org structures and the process of org design Job titles and hierarchies Culture design as an initiative and staying accountable Staying committed to culture design

Chapter 12: Policies, processes and structures HR and L&D – career progression and reward structures A new approach to people development and HR – the employee experience The changing organisation Reward structures and feedback Career progression Recruitment The changing workplace – flexibility and remote working Treating employees like freelancers Flexible and remote working Avoiding the corporate exodus – supporting retention Diversity and inclusion Workshop Culture celebrates individuals The flexibility of a Workshop Culture supports diversity How diversity benefits the individual (and society) Mental health and wellbeing Embedding good mental health Designing for creativity, productivity and balance An alternative view – work can give us energy Workspace, technology and tools The approach – work is is a mindset What do we need workspace for? Tools and tech – avoiding overload

Conclusion Toolkit References and further reading

FORMAT / ISBN / PUBLICATION DATE / RRP

Paperback / 9781788604710 / November 21, 2023 / £14.99

Ebook / 9781788604734 / November 20, 2023 / £7.99

Alison Coward

Alison Coward is the founder of Bracket, a consultancy that partners with ambitious, forward-thinking organisations to help them build high-performing collaborative team cultures. She is a strategist, workshop facilitator, coach, trainer, keynote speaker and author of A Pocket Guide to Effective Workshops. Her clients include Google, D&AD, Barclaycard, Wellcome and Channel 4. With nearly 20 years experience of working in, leading and facilitating creative teams, Alison is passionate about finding the balance between creativity, productivity and collaboration so that teams can thrive and do their best work together.

Alison’s first book A Pocket Guide to Effective Workshops has sold more than 1800 copies across 38 countries in both digital and hard copy format since its publication in 2015. She has delivered keynote talks on the topics of collaboration, team culture and workshops at conferences in the UK, across Europe and in the US such as Mind The Product, Business of Software and Google’s Sprint Conf. She has also delivered guest lectures at various universities including the University of the Arts London, Kingston University and Cambridge University.