Lexmark's learning curve

Computer-printer giant Lexmark International has regional offices dotted around the region and wanted to bring together 30 personnel from Greater China, Korea, Japan, Singapore, Australia and the USA in March for a teambuilding session to improve communications and enhance productivity. For Lexmark International, the specific need for teambuilding was driven by the fact that it wanted to gather staff from a relatively new wing of the company. Lexmark International's Roger Lee, who is marketing and programme manager for supplies business in Asia Pacific, explains. "Our division was formed less than one year ago. Some of the team members have been in the company for at least nine years, while others were only a few months into the job. And we have team members spread across the Asia Pacific region from different cultures. "We felt it would be good to bring every- one together to share strategies and learn the success stories of different countries." The company wanted to bring this team together but felt that a traditional seminarstyle event would not be suitable. It wanted to break the ice and establish good personal relationships between colleagues. Lee continues: " To make everyone fly from their countries and give them a packed threeday meeting agenda would be no fun. That was why we incorporated the teambuilding programme into our agenda." He identifies the event's three objectives: - to foster a closer working relationship among the Asia Pacific countries; - to understand each country's needs better; - to provide a more enjoyable meeting agenda for the team. Given that staff members would be travelling from different points around the region, Hong Kong was chosen as an accessible destination. "Our Asia Pacific headquarters is in Singapore. For time and cost-saving reasons which will benefit most of the participants, especially from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and Korea, we decided to have the event in Hong Kong." Training events expert The next challenge was to find a specialist organiser for the event. "We did an extensive search for a teambuilding company from Asia Pacific. We reviewed the proposal from the companies we contacted across Asia Pacific," Lee says. " We discussed with them over the phone and gauged their experience, commitment level, turnaround time and programme agenda to fit our meeting schedule and budget." For expertise, the company turned to Team Building Asia, a regional training events specialist that has earned a reputation for imaginative programmes tailored to the needs of major corporate clients such as BP, Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley. " Team Building Asia emerged as the number- one choice," says Lee. "In addition, in our early stage of discussion, Team Building Asia sent a representative from Hong Kong to meet us in our Singapore office so that we had a better understanding and feel of the company which made us more confident that they Integrating…leadership skills would be able to do the job well." Team Building Asia then sat down with Lexmark to identify the key objectives, plan the programme and work out a timetable. " We only provided them with our very tight meeting schedule and told them that they could only fit in two hours on the first evening, four hours in the second afternoon and another four hours in the third afternoon," he says. "After learning what we needed, Team Building Asia customised the programme for us in a very short timespan. We did not even need to change any part of our schedule to meet their requirements. That makes the planning a lot easier. They also suggested good dinner and meeting venues as well." David Simpson, senior partner, training, at Team Building Asia, was responsible for putting together the package. "Our initial meeting with Lexmark showed us that they wanted something new and exciting," he says. "They wanted to learn skills that they could take away and use. "For many of them it was the first time they met their colleagues face to face. We wanted to maximise the opportunity to put names to faces, integrate their team and develop leadership skills. "Juggling was a particularly popular activity. It was fun but also taught the participants the need to have clear goals and develop a process to achieve them and also to stress that they had to keep going and persevere." "The group was highly motivated team. The workshops were designed to emphasise how setting benchmarks for speed and eff iciency could be adapted to their work situation and how it was possible to reset these benchmarks and offset complacency." "The choice of venues was important. We started the introductory programme over champagne at Tott's restaurant in The E x c e lsior Hotel in Causeway Bay. Most of the indoor events were at the Aberdeen Marina Club. However, we also had an outdoor 'Amazing Race' style challenge that saw the group start out from Causeway Bay and head through Wanchai, take the Star Ferry to Tsim Sha Tsui, then back to Central for a final trip up The Peak to the finishing point at Café Deco," Simpson says. Lee sums up the programme positively. "All our team members were very happy and satisfied with the programme. Representatives from the US were very impressed with our agenda and highly recommended our meeting style for their own upcoming events," he says. Most importantly, Lee believes the teambuilding sessions cemented relationships between different offices and created a better collective spirit that has been translated into higher productivity. "We have benefited from faster turnaround times when we have projects which involve Asia Pacific, as we are very much closer as a team. Now we speak and think very much alike using the same language," Lee says.