Team Learning Workshops with Culinary Enhancement

Intense team building workshops with learning implementation in the kitchen.

What do some of the best performing teams out there have that others don’t? They have the ability to think better. The members of these teams are high-level thinkers who have spent time challenging themselves individually and as a group, to think differently about communication, collaboration, change, complex problem-solving, trust, expectations, goal-setting and leadership development. If you’re looking to enhance your team’s performance, overcome challenges and increase resilience, a team building learning experience is a perfect way to get started.

Our Team Learning Workshops are different than other team building activities because of how we integrate a culinary application to enhance the learning experience.

These two-part workshops are designed to really challenge your team members to open their minds, try on different perspectives, and create mindset shifts that self-motivate them into becoming the best possible versions of themselves.

Part 1: The Learning Experience

Your workshop will start in our Learning Lab, with thought-provoking learning and hands-on exercises, facilitated by one of our experts. The topics covered will be based on your team’s unique situation, and will incorporate brain science, social science and the latest research on performance and business development. Our mission at Thought Design is to give people the tools and strategies to develop better ways of thinking. Therefore, our sessions are strategically curated to encourage your team members to think deeply, act courageously and take some risks in figuring things out.

Part 2: The Kitchen

Research shows that when adults learn, the more senses that are engaged, the stickier the learning. What better way to engage all five senses than in the kitchen? After the learning workshop, your group will move into our Culinary Studio, where your new knowledge will be put to use to overcome various collaborative kitchen challenges. This not only reinforces the concepts learned in the session but is also a fun opportunity for team members to bond. Each workshop culminates with a meal, dessert and debrief that applies the meaningful session material to a relevant, and delicious scenario.

Get started today by telling us about your team and what you’re looking for.

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Work Better Together

No matter the focus of your workshop, your team members will bond together in ways they haven’t before. The sessions can teach your team critical lessons in team building, synergy, communication, change management and more. Below are five of our most popular workshops, but customization is our specialty. We feel that each team deserves a customized approach. We want to get to know your team, your goals for the experience you want to create, and develop something unique that fits within your budget.

Team Synergy: Leveraging Team Strengths

Take Your Team to the Next Level

Synergy – creating a result greater than the sum of its parts – is the goal of every team. In this workshop, teams will learn to identify the critical strengths of each member of their team and create strategies to apply their skills to roles that will support the team’s shared goals. Maybe you’ve done the Myers-Briggs or DISC personality tests, or dabbled with Strengthsfinder, but you’re looking for a way to apply that to how your team functions. This workshop is perfect if you want to take your team to the next level, and learn how you can work better together.

Team Dynamics: Encountering Complexity

Break the Cycle of Never Ending Problems

Each day, your team faces ever-changing challenges that continue to grow more complex, and the ways you traditionally approached these challenges simply aren’t working anymore. No matter how hard your team works, you find yourself feeling stuck and frustrated, with the same problems recycling over and over again. The problem isn’t your team’s dedication to solving the issue, it’s the way in which they are going about it. In this workshop, your team will be introduced to a model of identifying and understanding the types of problems and decisions they are encountering and will learn strategies for new habits of thinking to help analyze these increasingly complex challenges. The result will be a shift in team members’ reactions and practices in order to overcome the problems with new, creative solutions.

The Connected Team: Making Your Team a Tribe

Build Strong Communication, Trust, and Relationships

Research shows that healthy connections among members of a team are key to high performance. Creating a safe culture where all voices are appropriately heard and contributions are valued is essential, but is often times difficult to achieve. During this workshop, your team will explore some of the current research and the brain science behind it through several fun, yet powerful exercises. Take some time to get to know each other better, reconnect, and increase the trust and communication. This workshop is especially effective for teams that work remotely but works for any team looking to build stronger relationships.

Leading in Ambiguity

Remove Uncertainty, Doubt and Vagueness so You Can Get Things Done

When teams are operating in ambiguity, it will sound something like this:
“I’m not clear on the processes and procedures.”
“Things keep changing – targets, dates, resources, expectations.”
“I don’t know what to do, so I do nothing. I’m afraid of making the wrong decision.”
“We have major goals, but getting them accomplished is like pulling teeth.”
“Who is in charge of this? Who’s job is this? What department handles this?”

The need for strong leadership among teams is inevitable, especially as business and social challenges grow more complex. As the leader of your team, it’s your job to ensure that everyone is crystal clear about expectations, and if you’re hearing comments like those above, it’s time to take a step back and look at how you’re communicating. In this powerful workshop, your team will be introduced to some of the latest research and brain science to more deeply understand some of the mental shifts they need to make. Participants will undergo assessments, dialogue and exercises to better understand their own thinking patterns and strategies for leveraging and adjusting those patterns to become more effective leaders.

Navigating Change: Staying Buoyant Through the Changing Tides

Help Your Team Successfully Prepare for and Manage Change in the Workplace

Love it or hate it, change is here to stay, and it appears in many different ways: leadership shifts, succession plans, organizational structure, new location, updated priorities, expectations or goals. Whether you’re anticipating a major change in your company and want to prepare, or you’re undergoing significant changes at the moment and your team is having trouble adapting, spending some time exploring your team’s relationship with change can make or break their future success. During this workshop, participants will learn about the change in navigation patterns of themselves and their teammates, and the brain science that powers these thinking habits. They’ll also learn strategies to navigate change with less stress, greater collaboration, and more intention to build a stronger future.