This is how we do it
(sing it with us now!)
Sondermind Basecamp
SonderMind is a Denver-based startup that provides mental healthcare from licensed providers, in-person or online. Making that architecture work takes a huge team from People Ops to Engineering, Business Operations to Clinical Care teams who support patients and providers. As the world began opening back up at the start of 2022, SonderMind wanted to reinvest in their top People Leaders as a thank you for navigating their teams so skillfully during the pandemic.
The Goal: To create something to help a team of People Leaders re-connect, re-engage and get re-inspired about their work at SonderMind after a very long stretch of managing remotely through a pandemic. Many of these leaders onboarded during the pandemic and felt isolated from each other; the risk of burnout was high. Our remit was the build something restorative for these valued leaders at the company.
Design Challenges: Uncertain conditions. We were touch-and-go about whether this event could happen at all, especially as the Covid landscape and risk factors kept changing. We had a few false starts with venue availability, but finally were able to forge ahead with safety parameters in place ~8 weeks before launch!
The Solution: The solution was Basecamp, an immersive 2.5 day retreat that felt 100 percent Colorado, 100 percent SonderMind, and 100 percent custom for our special group of 22 leaders. No moment of this retreat was left unexamined to see if we could apply the best practices for gathering well and make the entire experience feel even more special. Some examples:
Invitations: Invitations were by nomination rather than rankings or executive goodwill. Knowing they were chosen and vetted gave the event more prestige and made participants feel special, chosen and wanted, thus upping their investment in the event itself.
The Buddy System: We gave everyone a Basecamp Buddy and a series of questions to ask their Buddy well before the event. In an era of remote work and isolation, we knew everyone would feel better if they felt they already had a friend in the room. After dinner, Buddies got up and introduced each other to the room to raucous applause… an energy boost and way to make people feel like rockstars early.
Small touches make a big difference: Our welcome cocktail hour employed the drinks rule to great effect. We also asked folks to come to dinner wearing expressories as an easy way of sharing more about who they are, what’s important to them and spark conversation. Small touchpoints like these encourage conversation and humor (or even good-natured grumbling about facilitators and their wild ideas - hey, we’ll take it!) and continue to build some psychological safety in the room.
Location, location, location: we chose The Oxford Hotel, a legendary Denver hotel + events venue that’s been around since the 1800’s. Right across from iconic Union Station, it’s a location that screams Denver and made it easy for folks from the airport to arrive and settle in as painlessly as possible.
Permission to be fully off. Our participants had cover from their individual executive leaders and down to be fully unplugged during Basecamp. Yes, it meant that work didn’t get done, it meant that fires had to be put out by other people. And it really meant that these dedicated leaders got a couple of days to just BE, learn and grow and get re-engaged about the work ahead. A few days of pain for years of gain if we did our work right and well.
With every moment designed for maximum gathering potential, we spent two days delving deeply into some of the challenges leaders today face: managing and leading through change, celebrating as a leadership skill (and how to apply it when things are hard!) and how to leverage empathy and EQ to work better together. We laughed, we cried, we played together for the betterment of the team and the org as a whole.
Result: An event to remember. But don’t let us say that - here’s what some of our participants said:
Hilary was fantastic, as were all the PeopleOps members who worked so hard to put this experience together. I'm super grateful for the opportunity and I think it was (and will continue to be) a transformative experience. Thank you.
It was such a great 2 day experience and I will take that with me for the rest of my career.
I felt so honored and privileged to have gotten to be apart of this experience. I truly feel like I learned things that I can apply to my leadership at SonderMind and contribute to making SonderMind a better/more sustainable place to work.
This was an incredible experience that changed my outlook on leadership (in a positive way). I walked away feeling inspired...something I haven't felt strongly for too long. - thank you thank you thank you!!!
Guild Education
Guild Education is a Denver-based ed tech startup that offers education as a benefit. The secret sauce? A team of 100+ amazing coaches who see Guild’s working professional students through the process, offering support, resources and encouragement along the way.
The Goal: To develop a set of Core Values and a Vision Statement specifically for the coaching organization, then design a world-class training program for 100+ coaches using a cohort model and weekly sequencing.
Design Challenges: Many! This project spanned 7 months and utilized every capability in the Altogether Human tool box: consulting, coaching, experience design and facilitation.
Challenge 1: Guild’s coaching staff had received minimal coaching training and was feeling the double weight of coaching students during Covid and during the George Floyd protests of 2020. As an additional layer, Guild has company Core Values and a Mission, but the coaches needed grounding values and a vision statement of their own to guide their work as coaches.
Challenge 2: Covid lockdown, which began shortly after the kickoff of this project. Dreams of in-person learning experiences quickly shifted to virtual experiences in smaller cohorts.
The Solution: Phase I saw a deep discovery process: surveys, focus groups, working sessions with 50+ coaches at a time, all aimed at honing in on Values and Vision with as much collaboration as possible to drive team buy-in at every stage of the project.
Phase II was the collaboration and creation of a 12-course internal coaching certification, with practice circles + homework between sessions that would equip coaches with not only the tactical knowledge they need to coach, but the emotional range to handle students at every life phase and place, with a special emphasis on inclusion and belonging. Virtual delivery means we pushed Zoom to its fullest capabilities, using white boards, annotation, breakout sessions, music and fun to deepen the learning and keep energy high.
Result: The result of this work is Unlocking U: Coaching Certification for Guild coaches.
More than 100 coaches were trained in an 8-week sprint before project handoff. The coaching program now has its own department with a new leader and two full-time facilitators. The program has also passed initial external evaluation as part of using coaching certification as a standard for employment. Evaluators said that the program “represents a solid pedagogical approach which demonstrates Guild’s commitment to ensuring success in the certification process.”
Team Rubicon
Team Rubicon is a global disaster relief non-profit that utilizes the skills and experience of military veterans to partner with first responders and help communities in need.
The Goal: to design Team Rubicon’s first-ever manager enablement program.
Design Challenges: Pioneering internal training in a new way. TR excels at training volunteers to do the vital work of disaster relief and everyone from C-suite to intern believes wholly in the mission of “Built to Serve.” With Mission at the forefront, however, internal full-time staff were serving without receiving the training and support they sorely needed to become leaders for the next generation of TR.
The Solution: After many discussions, proposals and workshopping of content, what could have been standard, content-driven manager training became an immersive, in-person bootcamp called Re:Purpose, held on Manhattan Beach for 18 People Managers at TR. Over 3 days, we spent time digging deep into concepts around communications, trust, feedback, and psychological safety using dance, games, small discussion groups, world cafe-style facilitation, reflection, journaling and more.
Result: Re:Purpose is in its fourth year at Team Rubicon and has become the highest rated and most beloved internal training program at TR. We pivoted to a virtual model during the pandemic. We’ve now completed 8 cohorts and are planning for the future of the program.
Asana
Asana is a SaaS designed to improve team collaboration, workflow management, eliminate busy work and help humanity thrive.
Design Challenges: Time! We had to build the initial 7 courses in less than 6 months from ground zero. We also needed to find a workflow with multiple SMEs and internal Asana stakeholders quickly and help those SMEs translate their knowledge and expertise from deep knowledge, jargon and the Curse of Knowledge into actionable takeaways that all Asanas can understand and implement in their own leadership journeys immediately
The Goal: To help Asanas to thrive - specifically managers - by creating a series of courses aimed at helping emerging leaders and managers tackle foundational skills like coaching, feedback, compensation conversations, performance management and more.
The Solution: Weekly design sprints, brainstorming sessions and a few days spent holed up in a room with far too many sticky notes ultimately birthed…Outstanding Manager Bootcamp! A 9-course series of competencies aimed at equipping managers in the fine art of managing from the abstract (building trust) to the specific (compensation and career planning the Asana way). We use breakout sessions, discussions, annotation and music to keep our 2-hour sessions fun and high impact.
Result: OMB is in its fourth year at Asana and shows no sign of slowing down. Courses consistently score high and often have return participants who come back to refresh their knowledge.