This was agreed to be a face-to-face activity, and in May 2023, a group of ten people attended a physical series of facilitated workshops at our carbon positive location: Earth Plus in La Palma, in the Canary Islands.

As for all businesses, securing time away from the office was an initial hurdle; however in order to launch the joint venture on a sound footing, it was essential to bring the two teams together to create the right context and the trust to resolve their business challenges. It would almost certainly involve some difficult conversations.

The team used a mixture of their yearly CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) allowance days, one day of their weekend and two working days to minimise their absence from the office.

What happened

On the first day the proposed plan of workshops designed to meet the goal of merging the two businesses hit an impasse.

The reasons for this were twofold:

1) The strong leadership personalities within these highly entrepreneurial start-ups found it difficult to create any cohesion around ideas

2) The specific personality types had very different styles of communication, which hampered their ability to listen and talk to each other.

It was clear that under these circumstances, there would be little likelihood of engendering a creative environment for the generation of fresh ideas and a springboard for the new JV.

Navigating through difficulties

At this point, the programme leader from Earth Plus, a qualified organisational psychologist, staged an intervention:

1. The delegates were immediately given two hours away from the workshop to decompress, either at the beach, or by taking a small sojourn in nature

2. During that time, Earth Plus conducted an assessment of the personality types and corresponding communications styles

3. Earth Plus implemented bespoke tools of communication based on how best an individual would react to the other personality types.

Two hours later, the groups were able to re-join their itinerary and at the end of the workshop, the two organisations had agreed a roadmap for their joint venture, with a shared view of the roles and responsibilities required, an outline sales and marketing strategy, and associated revenue targets.

The round table discussions led by Earth Plus, using the techniques of mediation and deep listening, helped the team overcome their barriers and drive towards a successful outcome.

 Business benefits

-The client measured the workshops to ascertain the business value, and calculated that, by coming together in this way, they had saved 14 business days in resolving the primary objective: the successful creation of a joint venture with full team alignment

-Employee Net Promoter Score improved by 137%

-The client agreed their ownership structure, business values and growth plan for the JV. In addition, the client helped the Earth: whilst attending the offsite, the team completed a group work exercise on how to reduce domestic violence in their home city, Paris. To this day, they continue to work on this real CSR initiative

-The client concluded that performing real humanitarian activities had a positive effect on their employees’ well-being, group cohesion and day-to-day business interactions.