Designing an organisation away day to reflect on new emerging strategy

Challenge

ETP (formally Ethical Tea Partnership) is a global membership organisation enabling systemic change to benefit everybody who works in tea.

After the appointment of a new executive director, and other changes within the organisation, the team needed to come together to reflect on their emerging strategy and discuss how they needed to work together to achieve it.

Kaleidoscope was commissioned to design, deliver and write up the day.

Approach

The awayday happened at a time of change, both in terms of the team make-up and the external context. Due to Covid-19, the team had spent little time together and needed to reconnect.

We designed an approach that aimed to fulfil both the strategic aims of the days, and also the cultural ones. This included giving time for the team to interact as individuals to rebuild trust and understanding, before sharing the progress of their different workstreams and how the overarching strategy was coming together.

The day built to a focus on the impact of the new strategy on how the team would need to work together in the future.

Impact

The event helped the team understand their strengths and challenges – and the implications of this for their future development. It enabled conversations on the organisation’s direction which had not previously been explored, and set the foundations for the change in strategic direction which followed.

Kaleidoscope designed and delivered a workshop that was sensitive to the strangeness of the moment (after months of lockdown and meeting new team members), yet focused on the key strategic issues to be discussed. Rich Taunt guided our day in a way that everyone felt that they could contribute, which was essential for the end product.

Jenny Costelloe, Executive Director at Ethical Tea Partnership