Thoughts along the way

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Is your team building time spilling?

Perhaps you joined a team building activity and afterwards thought, “Well, that was fun… can I please get back to work now?”. Climbing a tree or cooking a paella together with your colleagues may be fun, but it does not necessarily lead to better team results. Starting with two questions may instead move your team ahead more efficiently.
Fun experiences create emotional bonds, but they may not make your team more effective. This is one message conveyed by group dynamics and team work expert Susan Wheelan (PhD, president of GDQ Associates and author of numerous thought leading publications such as renowned book Creating Effective Teams: A Guide for Members and Leaders.) To boost team performance, "team building" activities must be related to your actual work and knowledge about your team processes.

This viewpoint is supported by a study of 125 teams, presented in the article "Stop Wasting Money on Team Building" (HBR 2018). The study investigated mechanisms behind collaboration and suggested that creative team building activities are a waste of time and money if the benefits of collaboration are unclear. That is, even if team members liked and valued each other, most of them were unable to see benefits of working as a team. Because collaboration had turned into an idealized, vague goal with no concrete terms or rewards, it was rather seen as an obstruction for their personal work objectives. The result? Most of them would rather work alone.

These insights suggest that collaboration needs to be defined and understood, to be something to achieve. In other words, get back to the foundation and establish clarity on why and how you collaborate. You can do this by considering these two questions with your team: 1) Why is collaboration essential to achieve our business results? 2) What work, which specific tasks, would require collaboration to deliver those results? At the root of this is the definition of a team purpose: Why working together as a team is more valuable than just the sum of your individual efforts.

It may sound simple and slightly more boring than racing go-kart or singing jazz together. But at Odd Agency we strive to make all meetings between people meaningful. This means that asking why is essential as basis for arranging any activity where you use your teams’ time and energy. So, ask your team why and how, and co-create your own team foundation and purpose. And of course, have fun along the way.

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For the second time, Odd Agency were happy to help Ramboll create a platform for exploring the future of healthcare.
In a fast-moving world driven by rapid technological innovation, our jobs are becoming increasingly complex. Roles, hierarchies and careers are not as fixed as they once were. Now, more than ever, it is up to ourselves to ensure we know how to stay relevant and happy. We have designed a program that will help you do just that.
Odd Agency designs and leads forums were thought leaders can explore future challenges and opportunities.  That is how we make a difference for people, organisations and societies. This video shows a forum where we helped our client to create a platform for exporing the future of health care. Get in touch if you want to create a meaninful meeting!
Perhaps you joined a team building activity and afterwards thought, “Well, that was fun… can I please get back to work now?”.  Climbing a tree or cooking a paella together with your colleagues may be fun, but it does not necessarily lead to better team results. Starting with two questions may instead  move your team ahead more efficiently.
Meetings are important channels in leading change. Odd Agency designs and leads meetings that contribute to strategic movement. The audiences we work with range from 5 to 1000 participants. 
Regardless the size of the forum, we have five principles we stay true to. This ensures we make a difference for people, organisations and societies.
Odd Agency designs and leads meetings that develop people in a changing world. 
We use dialogue to create trust and unleash creativity. 

That is how we make a difference for people, organisations and societies. 

This video (in Swedish) shows a meeting where we met with 200 leaders from one of our clients. 

Get in touch if you want to create a meaninful meeting!
How does one make visions and ideas actionable? How do you ensure that your creative workshops lead to more than post-its on a wall? For us, the Double Diamond is a true gem - figuratively speaking.
A few years ago, we asked you if your job can be done by a machine. Today, we know that in many cases, it can. The application of Articial Intelligence to the domain of leadership makes us curious to see whether certain leadership traits will prove more important than others.
 Together with a client, advisor in design of future societies, we created a dialogue workshop where children and politicians came together to collaborate and explore children's needs in society.

What better way to understand the future than to ask the children who will live in it?