The Power of The Team

Last week, was incredible. Not only did my place of work celebrate its 10th anniversary on Friday night with a celebratory event and awards - more about that later in the blog - but we had an all staff development day on the Wednesday which allowed the full team of marketing and learner recruitment the chance to get together. This is so rare as my team look after our receptions and visitors, students and prospective students and we are all about customer first.

We took the time to spend the day learning and talking over subjects including introducing ourselves with a fun fact or goal for 2026, successes over the past four years and the core contributions to these, the strategic plan and the themes and how we can contribute as a team, Ofsted's new framework and a focus on inclusion, trauma informed discussions and celebrity service next steps. The team worked on a fun creative task as well as enjoying a session where they could voice any issues they wanted to. It was a great day and so many fantastic suggestions, actions and outcomes and ideas to follow up on.

We all ended it by voicing one nugget of learning that resonated with each of us and for me who had organised the day, my learning that I was incredibly lucky to be able to lead and support such a hard working and positive team who really engaged with every session throughout the day with good humour and focus. We all know in leadership that we are only the sum of our parts.

Teams are crucial to supporting the customer journey whether dealing with customers directly (in person or on the phone) or indirectly (marketing videos or brochures). Teams make customer service work.

I was reading this quote recently: "The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team." This quote is by Phil Jackson who is renowned for his coaching success in the NBA. Teams work well when people believe in the team and the members contribute to that team. Teams are - also - only the sum of their parts.

Teamwork makes the dream work - and the customer service dream work too.

The 10th celebration was also a celebration of another team - the team that is the organisation. It was a great night celebrating so many teams - within the organisation team - for delivering, integrity, inclusivity and being one team as well as for leadership excellence, teacher and customer service to name a few.

Teams are made up of so many different parts - each contributing to the success of the organisation and the customer journey.