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Team development at Cisco

In the first quarter of 2003, Cisco Systems EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) wanted to harness the talents and energy of team of 60 people based across the whole of Europe, many of whom never get a chance to meet each other, let alone spend time understanding each other.

But they wanted the team event to last only one day, and use an activity, which the majority of the participants had never experienced before.

This was the challenge presented to John Matchett Limited.

Michael Brown heads up John Matchett's Innovative Learning team - the group called on to provide learning outside the training room. "Our Innovative Learning events are designed to produce high impact learning within a very short space of time. They can all be tailored to pull out particular areas of learning, so it was really a matter of selecting one which we thought would appeal to the group and set them a challenge which would take them out of their normal comfort zone."

"We decided on Face the Music. The group were given 7 hours to write, rehearse and finally record their own music CD. We wanted 8 tracks, 6 produced by a different team and 2 with all 60 people on them. They also had to give their album an identity, create the cover and the insert, and finally just to really push it we wanted them to raise money for charity with the end result."

The team had access to relevant resources - 3 musicians with whom they could negotiate for support, a recording technician with a mobile recording studio, computers and, crucially, access to the Internet.

Guenter Junk, Vice President - EMEA Operations, was genuinely amazed at the result. "This event has really helped me to understand the power of the team. And the great thing is that everyone else understands it too. We had a tricky initial couple of hours when, as usual, we were too busy to put a good plan together, but after that people really got going and we came up with a great end-product."

The great end-product was an 8 track CD, written support from Coca Cola to a possible partnership arrangement in raising money for the War Child charity, and a superb CD cover and lyrics booklet.

As facilitator of the event, Brown was able to identify strengths and weaknesses in the behaviours displayed. "We always ensure we allow a full debrief after these activities. Having the great collective experience is fine, and we mustn't underestimate the value of what we call the "emotional glue" that is put into a team when they achieve something as worthwhile, permanent and memorable as this. However, we have to pull out the learning whilst it's still hot, so we had a 3 hour review of what had helped, what hindered, and what people are going to do differently as a result of what they learnt about themselves and the people they work with."

From Junk's perspective, the event paid off. "We learnt so much in the time available, and what is really great is that people are still talking about it 3 months after the event. Partly that's because it was so emotionally stimulating, and partly they have a CD to play at home, and they are all selling copies for charity. We are thinking now about how to sustain the learning further - possibly through half day follow up workshops in smaller groups."

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