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- PMLiVE

What are the benefits of running workshops for international teams?

April 22, 2016 | Brand Strategy, capability development, workshops 

Frances Hendry of Blue Latitude Health takes a deeper look at the benefit of workshops and how clients can use them as a tool to develop cross-functional alignment, reach ideas, and define projects more quickly.

Working in pharma, we’re used to international teams, travel and technology. For some teams, technology in particular overcomes the challenges of working at distance, but could the lack of side-by-side team-working actually be compromising how teams work cross-functionally?

Senior Associate Consultant Frances Hendry takes a deeper look at the benefit of workshops and how clients can use them as a tool to develop cross-functional alignment, reach ideas, and define projects more quickly.

What is the value in holding workshops?

Why not simply have a conference call with your wider team? It’s budget friendly, there’s no travel involved, you can continue with other work throughout the day, you can present a topic or a range of topics, and the list goes on.In this day and age, with technology playing such a significant role in our working lives, it would seem to make sense to opt for a web conference rather than a face-to-face workshop. 

So why are workshops valuable?

Think about your most recent conference call with your colleagues; if you were presenting on the call, what was the challenge? The first challenge is that they are on the other end of the phone; you can’t see their general body language, which means you can’t tell how they are reacting to what you are saying. The very problem lies in the fact that your colleagues are not present, and therefore not engaging with you; they may very well be attending the call, but they still have access to their email, mobile, and in fact, they can put their phone to mute, picking and choosing when and if they contribute to the call.

They are not present.

Workshops are not a status update

The purpose of workshops is fundamentally different to teleconferences; they are not status updates where you can pick and choose where people feel they can contribute. They are an opportunity to address a problem in a collaborative manner, face-to-face. …

- PMLiVE

Download the full article from Blue Latitude Health here

This content was provided by Blue Latitude Health