On Wednesday, November 16, 2022, the time had finally come: after what felt like an eternity, the entire (!!) MFC team met in the beautiful Velen Castle in Muensterland to spend the next three days working together in workshop sessions on how we want to position ourselves as an agency in the future and how we can move ourselves - and also our clients - further forward.
Putting ourselves and our working methods to the test and optimizing them is supposed to be on the agenda every few years. However, due to COVID and its effects on the entire (agency) life, quite a while had passed since the last workshop and so we all agreed that it was about time again. For the days in Velen there was a lot on the agenda, but according to the motto "Work before pleasure", pleasure was not neglected either. 😉
Day 1
After all colleagues had arrived at the castle one by one, the rooms were checked in. Each room was named after a fairy tale character and some of us wondered how exactly the distribution of the rooms took place and whether it had a deeper meaning that one had gotten exactly this room. #grumpy
After a short refreshment at one of the food stations, the first workshop started. We were accompanied by Markus Hartmann, who, as described on his website, has been helping people in agencies since 2017 and whom some of us already know from his virtual academy. Markus' task was to moderate the workshops and provide us with valuable impulses at one point or another. To make this short: He did a great job and at this point we would like to thank you once again, dear Markus!
Workshop session no. 1
The first workshop started and so we all gathered in the seminar room and took a seat in the, let's call it "classic chair circle in a feel-good ambience". 😉
Markus opened the session with the question: what expectations and what wishes do you have?
And so we all one after the other began to tell with which expectations we had arrived in Velen. Some of us already had thought about it in advance and/or had already exchanged ideas with several colleagues. Each of us was able to say what is working well at the moment and what could work better. It quickly became clear that we all hoped that the time in Velen would enable us to critically review our existing processes and beliefs and to work out collectively how we could reposition and restructure ourselves and, above all, how we could further improve ourselves. At the same time, it was quite clear to all of us: we have to get down to the nitty-gritty and there is a lot of work waiting for us. But let's tackle it!
The first evening or: was that the castle ghost?
After the first workshop session, we enjoyed some leisure time. Actually, the very first "MFC goes Yoga" session was on the schedule, but since I was a bit under the weather, the yoga session unfortunately had to be cancelled. However, in and around the castle there were enough possibilities to spend one's time, so that nobody had to be bored. In Lutter's wine cellar, a toast was made to a good time and the first rounds of billiards and foosball were started. At 7:30 p.m. an aperitif was served and at 8:00 p.m. we all headed to the dining room for dinner.
After dinner we met again in Lutter's wine cellar and again billiards, foosball, bowling, darts and Street Fighter were played. The motto of Velen Castle "to feel at home" was very much reflected in all areas and so we were able to practice tapping our own beer and mixing our own cocktails. The latter, however, with only moderate success 😀
While some of us stayed up until half past one, the day ended for me around 11 p.m. As a mom of a toddler, you're happy about every minute of sleep you can get and I was honestly thrilled to have the whole bed to myself.
But as a mom you have somehow also forgotten how to sleep soundly, and so I woke up around 03:35 a.m. when my room neighbor came "home" and though it would be a good idea to play some party music. And so he started playing the song "Tití Me Preguntó" by Bad Bunny on loop for about 30 minutes. Well, it may or may not have been my room neighbor, or it may have been the castle ghost, who - as some of my colleagues reported the next morning - was making his rounds through the castle noisily clattering and rattling the room doors here and there to see if they were locked.
Day 2, workshop session no. 2
The next morning, the delicious breakfast buffet, which left nothing to be desired, provided an optimal start to the day. Afterwards, we gathered in our chair circle and started our session. Markus opened the session with the question how our evening was and if some of us probably reflected on the first session and the stated expectations. After discussing this, we moved on to the question of how the collaboration on projects is currently organized, what difficulties exist and what we think can be changed in order to get rid of these difficulties and allow us to work more efficiently. Again, we all agreed quite quickly that whenever we worked together in small teams to focus on a specific project, it worked very well and the team was always very happy with the result. As the session progressed, it became more and more apparent that it might be the right way for us as MFC to split up into small teams and have each team serve a fixed set of clients. Rather than the project team being completely different from client to client, as is currently the case.
On the flipcharts, we listed our clients and the names of the colleagues who currently support each client, in order to see if we might already be able to identify a certain pattern here. We were able to see that there was already overlap with some clients, but somehow the scales didn't fall from our eyes. Maybe there was no such thing as the pattern? Or could we just have overlooked it, even though it was written right in front of our eyes? It was about time for a break...
After lunch, we discussed how many teams we would have to divide ourselves into in order to still be able to comprehensively support our customers, but at the same time have enough space for the further development of the clients and the acquisition and support of new ones. There was a lot of thought and discussion, ideas were taken up and discarded, and when we had reached a consensus, the task was to put together the new teams and assign them the clients they would be responsible for from then on.
This task was quite challenging because it involved breaking down habitual structures and putting them together in a new way. We human beings are creatures of habit and change does not always come easily. The names of all colleagues and clients were written on pieces of paper and hung on a board. There was a lot of shuffling, rearranging, picking up ideas that had already been discarded and rechecking them for reasonableness until the first version was up.
We took a step back from the board and everyone took a moment to think about whether he or she would be comfortable in this new arrangement and whether he or she could imagine working in this team and for these clients.
One or the other of us quickly developed a feeling that can be described as "separation pain": I have always enjoyed supporting client x and would actually like to continue supporting him, or I have enjoyed working with colleague y and would actually like to continue doing so.
We worked out a second and also a third version and critically examined all versions over again. In the end, however, we came to the conclusion that the first version was the version we would like to start with. This led directly to the next questions: how exactly do we start and what does all this mean for the current projects? Will one now be directly removed from a project because one is not a member of the team that will support the client and its project(s) in the future? Again, the feeling of separation pain spread, but we all agreed that it will be a smooth process, which will also give us the opportunity to pause every now and then to check if the steps we defined next can be taken as planned or if there is a need for adaptation. With a long list of todos and mixed, but mostly positive feelings, we ended the work for the day.
The second evening
After the rather exhausting second session, we all focused on clearing our heads. Some went swimming and to the sauna, others went for a walk or talked with others about the results of the second session. And others made themselves comfortable in Lutter's wine cellar, where we met again for an aperitif, and called it a day after dinner. The cocktails tasted a little better today 😉 and at a late hour some went to the karaoke room. Thanks to the wide range of leisure activities on offer, we were all able to relax well, allowing us to start the third and final day with a fresh head.
Day 3 - workshop session no. 3
Well nourished and highly motivated, we started the third and last workshop session after breakfast. Markus opened the session with the question whether our expectations, which we had expressed on day 1, were fulfilled or whether there is still something we need to discuss in this regard. We shared our thoughts and feelings and all in all there was a positive energy mixed with a portion of skepticism that comes with the law of habit and change.
We focused on our current projects and tried to identify a certain pattern here as well. As with the project teams we had looked at on the second day, we couldn't see the pattern at first glance. Markus kept asking exactly the right questions and also repeated his questions over and over again in a continuous loop until we were finally able to see the pattern and subsequently were even able to work out which opportunities this might open up for us with regards to new clients. 💡
We ended the session by looking back at the steps we had defined the night before and deriving from them the first smaller steps that we can already implement right after the weekend. And with that, we closed the third session. Our time in the beautiful Velen Castle ended after the last lunch together.
Conclusion
The joint workshop in Velen was definitely a great success. It is not always easy to hold up a mirror to oneself, but it was obvious to all of us that we would like to change something and that this may mean having to take new paths. I guess none of us would have expected that we would be able to take the first steps on the very next working day. At this point, I would like to give my thanks to the entire team for the wonderful time we have had together...we are a great team and I am very happy to be part of MFC!
Even if not everything is clear down to the last detail right now - or maybe just because of that - we all agree that we are ready to take the next steps. And as we all know, the journey is the destination. So our new mantra is: Start and don't stop!
With this in mind: Namasté
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