Management Development

“Simply putting a number of people together and expecting them to work as a team is not enough”
This quote from Meredith Belbin sums up one of the commonest dilemmas facing managers today.

To address this, we work with a number of tools to help you identify where your teams current strengths are as well as where they could most develop to reach the peak of their effectiveness. We then use our boats to provide the active learning environment, the pressure, and the incentive.

The tools we mainly use are:-

Belbin, which  is a well-known powerful management resource, a profiling tool which allocates team roles to individuals. There are nine team roles – Plant, Shaper, Co-ordinator, Resource Investigator, Teamworker, Implementer, Monitor-Evaluator, Completer-Finisher and Specialist. To find out more about the theory behind Belbin, go to www.belbin.com.

Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), describes an individual's personality preferences. It represents these in four dimensions:  Extraversion or Introversion  Sensing or Intuition  Thinking or Feeling  Judging or Perceiving and are based on the initial work of Swiss Psychologist Carl Jung.  MBTI is incredibly powerful in helping people understand where there preference lie under various situations and the differences between themselves and others.  It can increase the awareness of the team’s working style and through this, improve team communication, enhance problem solving, encourage appreciation of diversity and resolve conflict.

SDI, The Strength Deployment Inventory is a questionnaire created specifically to make the benefits of Relationship Awareness Theory available to everyone. You complete it by answering specific questions that look at the following 2 situations:

• When things are going well and you feel good about yourself... and...

• When things are going wrong and you are in conflict with others.

It is a learning resource because there are no 'right or wrong' answers... just two positions on a unique, coloured  triangle, which is used to plot your position based on your Motivational Value System

Why people do what they do - By understanding your Motivational Value System in turn helps you appreciate why other people do what they do... This 'enlightenment' has an immediate impact on your relationships, both personal and professional and so is particularly beneficial for teams to help them understand each other.

The Intelligent Sailing experience.

Initial shore-based sessions will profile the individuals in the team and provide theoretical information, based on the outputs of the profiling tool. This will provide both individuals and the team, areas to focus on relating to their preferences, strengths and development areas. Onboard the yachts we then create a series of exercises that allow each individual to explore their own behaviour and contribution to the team. This experience-based approach enables the individual to arrive at their own solutions, maximising their learning. The experience requires observation from, and interaction with the facilitator.

We are able to explore a wide variety of team and leadership situations, including the following: 

•     Explore the result of switching roles

•     Creating the winning team

•     Taking individuals out to observe the team and give feedback

•     Inter-boat action and competitiveness

•     Cooperation and collaboration

•     Focus and goals

•     Aiming for win/win 

And back to business…

Once back on shore, our skilled facilitators enable the teams and individuals to explore the behaviours displayed and see where these may have helped or hindered the situation. Discussions will be continually and directly related back to the existing workplace environment.
Finally, the shared conclusions of the groups are drawn together and specific, practical suggestions for immediate and future change in the workplace are made. 

It’s all about YOU.

The entire event, content of the shore-based theory sessions and structure of the yachting sessions depends upon your business and team objectives. The event can then be tailormade and the impact maximised to improve team performance in your workplace and deliver your required return on investment. 

Motivate your team!

Andrew Keating, Director of Store Operations at B&Q said our team building package was '"the best corporate event we have ever been involved with".

If your company places a great deal of importance in your staff and client relationships -

Merchant Yachting can help you strengthen these by designing a team building event to suit your needs.
Whatever the objective; the introduction of new targets, changing or improving working relationships, rewarding your team for a successful year, or perhaps you have just secured a new project and need to quickly bring your team together, we can help you implement it. Just one day away from the office with Merchant Yachting can bring significant benefits to your organisation, such as; improved performance, common understanding, better communication, accelerated change and retention of staff.

We will not compromise on safety or quality, and our qualified yacht skippers are mature industry professionals who know how to motivate and bring people together to effectively reach their goal, to create a team spirit, and to win!

Peter Flynn, Managing Director at Close Invoice Finance said "the event brought together our 80 staff in a way that has never happened before and six weeks later they are still talking about it!"

If you would like to know more about a tailored exclusive event for your company, please contact a member of the team today. 

We look forward to creating events that are truly inspirational and memorable for your company.