The board of Experian had been going through a period of training and counselling prior to the company’s flotation and they came to Greystoke Castle to develop their communication and team working skills.
The Experian Board undertook our Flying Buttress challenge, in which three
teams tackle a full-scale bridge building exercise. The build team surveys
the problem at the bridging site, the resources team collects materials to
build the bridge and thus sees the solution, while the design team, who are
responsible for producing the build plan, sees neither the problem nor the
solution. The design team therefore depends totally on information fed to
it via radio by the other two teams.
Initially the design team generates pressure on the other teams for information,
but once the other two teams think that all relevant information has been
communicated, this pressure reverses. Once the build plan has been produced,
costed, vetted and passed for safety, all three teams come together to build
the bridge.
The exercise places remorseless pressure on communication between the teams,
on their decision-making processes and on the teams’ ability to manage
limited resources against ever tightening deadlines.
The Experian team performed very well. The quality of communication was uniformly
good and individuals avoided the traps that would have strained working relationships.
