The testimony of thy good name is a better guard than a sharp sword.

The Situation

Leading on major environmental incidents, with 24/7 service, and incidents typically reported every 6 minutes... that’s a huge range of high-pressure activities (28 specific incident types) for a team of 360 people to handle. A team survey reported that the over-riding issues were ‘peaks, more peaks, fewer troughs’, and that the incidents the team were dealing with were getting bigger, more complex, and more frequent. People frequently had to make critical decisions with incomplete information when making no decision was not an option. Post event reviews could be brutal. Fatigue was high, with staff feeling the weight of their jobs at times. All these factors created an environment that was hard to thrive in. The team needed to be able to turn up and feel confident in their decision-making day in, day out whilst also becoming resilient to tough judgments in critical areas. Working in such high-intensity environments builds extremely strong bonds but this can be a double-edged sword as people don’t want to let the team down and, if not carefully managed, this can result in team members running on empty. We needed to help people break that cycle and give insights on how and when to deploy different strategies. To move from survive to thrive. The areas identified where the team needed help were ‘managing ourselves and our relationships’, ‘managing upwards’ and ‘managing in a harsh environment’.

The Solution

We worked very closely with our client to fully understand the pressures that the team were under. There were a lot of discussions about what might be possible given the number of people, how much time they would need to be away from their day-to-day jobs to participate and the real need for change. We designed and delivered a two-part journey to raise awareness and identify everyone’s characteristics. Building from this new awareness, they learned the mechanisms that would help them to take more control of their situations and thrive going forward. The first session looked at leading in challenging times. It took a deep dive into personal styles and how these impacted on themselves and the wider team. It also explored ways of developing the team’s emotional intelligence to unleash motivational abilities, helping with building meaningful and lasting relationships. We included an archetypal approach to bring a deeper understanding of why they were feeling and acting the way they were. After the first programme was completed, the evidence and evaluation gathered shaped and defined the scope of the second bespoke programme. The second session examined the themes of how best to look after ourselves while managing times of high demand and change. It focused on two key archetypes, the Sovereign, from which we asked, “where do I have control and where can I show visible leadership?” and the Nurturer, from which we looked at “how do I best look after myself and others during demanding and changing times”.

The Outcome

That initial programme journey is still being talked about within the organisation and there were requests for the journey to be continued. Following the session an all-staff survey revealed that the programmes had shifted them to see patterns that play out all the time that they had previously not been conscious of.

“If we’re not on our A game situations can quickly implode. Consequences are potentially serious, including loss of life and livelihoods. Working with Olivier Mythodrama helped us to unlock how we can bring our A game, even in the most challenging of circumstances.”