Innovation, Industry & Regional Development’s practical application of the Organisational Zoo
Posted by webmaster 30 March 2007
As a change management consultant with the Business Services team, a division of the Office of Small business within the Dept of Innovation Industry & Regional Development, I was recently tasked with organising a team building day for the newly formed Business Service team.
One of the key responsibilities of this team is to deliver the World Class Service initiative, which is a Whole of Govt. program to improve service delivery to small business. The major focus of the day was team building, with a secondary focus being to ensure the team members understand the division’s strategy. The Director of the division Dominic Feik, believes strongly in empowered individuals working together to achieve their goals rather than an overly controlled or managed team. Therefore success was defined as:
- Getting the team communicating with each other,
- Understanding the different traits and skills needed in the team, and
- Ensuring each member understood how their work fits in with the bigger picture.
Dominic wanted the day to be effective and fun !
After hearing Arthur Shelley speak at a recent CIN function, I thought his work on the Organisational Zoo would fit the bill exactly. Arthur’s book asserts that work environments have similarities with zoos in that they are a collection of creatures brought together artificially and that work environments actually require the varied traits and behaviours of different “animals” to effectively deliver their work.
In preparation for the session we asked team members to review the variety of animal types and select the one that best represented them in the work environment. Within a few days of sending the request, people were stopping me in the hall, asking for qualification on particular animal types, conversations were happening across partitions, in corridors and the kitchen. People were “trying on” various animals to see if others agreed with their self assessment. In short the team building and communicating had started long before the session had even began !
Arthur Shelley delivered a three hour session and fully engaged the team with his humerous style whilst explaining the theory behind the Org Zoo. Before lunch was served he had everyone communicating as they tried to work out a variety of group and individual activities that illustrated various aspects of how people work together. The final activity was to write down three things each person was going to do upon return to work.
The management team reviewed their lists on the following Monday and have implemented several of the action items including organising regular whole team get togethers and creating better new hire introductions. Many more changes are in the works. There was much laughter and talking both on and off topic as the facilitator was excellent at connecting with the entire group and ensuring the content was delivered in an enjoyable and consumable fashion.
Many thanks to Arthur for the productive and fun session and to the CIN for supporting us in our quest to continuously improve what we are doing.
Post kindly provided by elizabeth.lee@diird.vic.gov.au
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