A participant’s experience: a tailor-made workshop to support a team’s development

Colleagues entered the room wanting to strengthen their team cohesion, share knowledge more openly and collaborate more closely. Half a day later, they left feeling more connected and with clear practical outcomes to take forward. A participant kindly shared their reflections on the event with me by email. With permission, I share them here.

Let’s start with background information. I was invited to design and facilitate, on behalf of AIM & Associés, a team-building event in September 2026 for a unit of one of the Agencies of the European Union (the specific organisation is not named on request). Up to 12 people would participate.

The unit delegated a small but diverse team to brief me on where they were at and what they wished to work on during the event. They explained that the unit had existed for only a couple of years and brought together previously independent teams with quite unrelated tasks. Despite that, synergies were possible but not yet sufficiently noticed or acted upon. “Help us move from a group to a team” was the overall request.

They told me they took it seriously and really wanted the event to bring something useful for them. With only three and a half hours available, the stakes were high. I’m glad to look back on this team workshop as a success, and I’m grateful that I can share the thoughtful reflections I received afterwards.

Hearing directly from a participant

What follows are the words of C.C., who has been in the unit since it was created:

On behalf of our Head of Unit and our organising team I would like to thank you for facilitating such an engaging and valuable Away Day for our Unit.

We particularly appreciated the balance you created between strengthening our interpersonal connections and reflecting more concretely on how we work together as a Unit. The different exercises allowed us not only to connect in a more informal and positive setting, but also to step outside our usual working patterns, exchange perspectives across our different functions, and learn from colleagues we may not work with closely day-to-day.

We found the combination of the Troika consulting and the reflection on our team behaviours particularly useful. It helped translate the broader objective of strengthening our cohesion into very practical discussions about how we collaborate, share knowledge, and make better use of the different expertise available within the Unit. We also appreciated that the morning did not stop at reflection but concluded with concrete ideas and follow-up actions that we can now experiment with and build upon. This closely aligns with what we hoped to achieve from the day.

*Reflection after Troika consulting, a structured peer-to-peer coaching method in triads*.

More generally, the Away Day gave us a welcome opportunity to reconnect as a team and focus on our strengths and how we want to work together going forward. The positive and forward-looking atmosphere you created throughout the morning contributed greatly to this. It was a pleasure working with you to prepare the Away Day and participate in the session itself. All the best, and we hope we will have the opportunity to work together again in the future.