Mirja Aukee works as content team leader and communications specialist in the communications organisation of the Espoo Parish Union. In this customer story, Mirja describes how a large team faced change, and how conversation with Topaasia's game cards helped them process the change together.
The challenge: a team's change situation
The Espoo Parish Union already had previous experience of using Topaasia to develop work community communications, and Mirja received a request from within the organisation for a game session related to a change affecting a large team.
"We ended up playing a session with the large team, dividing it into three playing groups. In all the games we used the Leading Together deck", Mirja says.
The purpose of the game sessions was to get the team members to discuss, in a constructive way, the changes affecting their work. Mirja explains that the team's working environment and duties were about to change, so their line managers wanted the game to give people a way to talk, vent their feelings, and process their thoughts in the face of the change. The game sessions were not aimed at finding solutions; the purpose was to form a shared view of the upcoming change and to make everyone's voice heard.
"What was really good about the games was that people each got to say in turn what they think about the change and how it feels. In the games we reflected together on what new opportunities the change might bring to our own work as well. As a result, the team's level of collaboration and trust grew stronger in changing circumstances", Mirja notes.
Readiness to face change through conversation
In Mirja's experience, talking things through openly is important in change situations, because if big changes are made in a hurry and the things beneath the surface are not spoken out loud, they can complicate the change and bubble up in the middle of it in a way that is not constructive.
According to Mirja, playing opened up the conversation and made people feel better, because it allowed uncertainty to be shared. At the same time, it provided an opportunity to think about what good might come out of the change.
Mirja Aukee
A safe environment for facing change
"The most important thing about Topaasia is that it stops each team member for a moment to genuinely think about the matter at hand and then say it out loud. It guides people to say what might feel frightening about the change and, on the other hand, to reflect on its strengthening aspects. Change is often frightening, and it can create resistance to change, but the conversation got everyone thinking about whether something good could also come of this", Mirja says, and continues by clarifying why conversation is important in a change situation:
"Conversation is important because it helps people face change and adapt to it, and to be an active agent of change themselves. When team members get to say for themselves, in a safe atmosphere, what feelings the change stirs up, then the matter has been brought to the table, no one has to guess what others think about it, and the matter can be handled with the cards on the table, so to speak. The conversation set in motion the change process through which the change has been carried out."
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Thank you Mirja and the Espoo Parish Union!
https://www.espoonseurakunnat.fi