The Catalyst recently worked with Knolscape as a knowledge partner to deliver an innovative program on deconstructing barriers on collaboration & communication, breaking silos and building and leveraging relationships with others for maximizing business impact for a well known IT & consulting giant. This workshop was conducted for almost 800 junior level top talent employees within a span of one month across multiple geographical locations.

Business Need : The workshop on building collaboration and communication was part of a larger top talent program journey being run for the junior level in the organization. The objective was focussed on developing their interpersonal ability to communicate & work better in teams and with other key stakeholders as they gradually evolve from individual contributor roles to team leader roles in the near future.

Diagnostic conducted : The Catalyst conducted numerous stakeholder calls with key folks in both the client and partner organization to understand the program needs in great detail which  enabled them to customize the program content to match the exact participant need.

Program Design : The program design relied a lot on utilizing the game based learning principles which The Catalyst specializes in. We custom created a unique and highly engaging board game called “Maximize” which focuses on enabling  managers to practice collaboration in a competitive set-up. While competing for essential resources in a high-pressure environment, through this game the participants got to practice essential elements related to communicating with purpose, building trust and collaborating across silos to achieve a common goal. Supported by a strong debrief through the concept of creating a ‘Learning Arena’, the participants learnt about relationship styles and how to flex/adapt style to suit others, how to overcome various collaboration barriers, build trust and understand about the power of listening. The learning were further embedded through series of caselets and roleplays which helped participants mirror their actual work situations and apply the concepts learnt. The program wrapped up with a powerful action planning using an action planning toolkit.

Program Delivery : The team at Catalyst handpicked qualified senior trainers, conducted teach backs and assessment to shortlist the final trainers for whom a detailed TTT was conducted to ensure that they were completely hands on with the entire program content and prepared to deliver the program across locations in a seamless manner.

Outcome: 35 programs got delivered across 6 locations spanning almost 400 employees by a team of 8 trainers in a month’s time with outstanding feedback scores ( average content and facilitator feedback core at 9/10) from the participants.