With such a stratospheric rise comes unique challenges. How do you behave and even think of yourself as part of one team when your organisation has so rapidly ballooned? Their challenge for the future is to remain true to their roots as an independent, full-service provider sustaining strong relationships within the organisation and across an enormous client base.

Communication and understanding is challenging for any team; the added obstacles of different time zones alone make real-time conversations between regions difficult. Many of the Nucleus agencies are actually in competition with each other, naturally adding to a feeling of ‘them vs. us,’ undermining the evolution of a united organisation.

The ‘retiring’ founder and CEO, aware of these barriers to smoother success, was keen to address team skills in his key leaders, and to establish stronger supportive relationships. Although personally quite reserved, he instinctively knows that teamwork and partnership must be at the core of Nucleus if it is to sustain success.

Our initial two-day programme deliberately threw the group into disarray, provoked them to observe and reflect upon both positive and destructive behaviour, and explored what a high-performing team feels like. One overarching element we focused upon was trust: what it is, how it is built, and how it impacts upon productivity. The levels of trust present within the group and wider organisation were analysed, and strategies for generating genuine trust were discussed.

This learning encompassed a range of experiential tasks providing authentic challenge; although the reviews which followed were somewhat deep and often slightly uncomfortable for many, the team still enjoyed the two days immensely, with many laughs along the way. They assured us that overall, improvement and progress made the venture out of their ‘comfort zone’ well-worthwhile.

For our follow-up programme 7 months later, the group greeted us with hugs and smiles – they were also evidently happier spending time together. Keen to continue on their path to strengthened relationships, they opened up more readily, and approached our new challenges in an instantly more united and honest manner. Rounding off with a real display of trust from the CEO was a literal high point!