Make It Better workshop: a day on the Neretva, a day in the meeting room, three agreements.
Make It Better: a workshop that turns collaboration between individuals into shared rules of work. The managing director takes part as a member of the team.
The challenge
Eight employees and a managing director, all experts in their part of the job. The goal: that what lies between individual responsibilities – handovers, the flow of information, open questions – gets clear rules and owners. And that the director is in the room without running it.
The programme
- Day one on the river, day two in the room. A shared activity on the Neretva opens the conversation; the Make It Better workshop turns it into agreements.
- The starting picture is known. A survey before the programme gives the situation; during the programme it is confirmed, not repeated.
- One sentence becomes the filter. The team itself writes “We are a team that ___”; every agreement has to be consistent with it.
- Three agreements at most. Each with an owner and a procedure for when it is broken. Ten agreements in practice means none.
- The director speaks last. No defending, no explaining.
Four steps: see (the situation) → understand (what produces it) → choose (what we stop, what we keep) → do (the first action before leaving the room).
What stayed
- The team’s sentence, displayed in the office.
- Three agreements with an owner and a recovery procedure.
- A 30-day experiment with a measure and a review date.
- A review after 30 and 90 days: every agreement gets a status – in place, partly, not in place.
The Neretva, in photos
Photos are from the programme, not from a stock library.
Recognise the situation? Good individuals, but collaboration depends on goodwill – Make It Better is a one-day workshop. It works best paired with a day outdoors, as on the Neretva, but it also works on its own in a meeting room. Read also the case study of a 26-person team across three venues →