10 things we learnt at the first Teamy Talks

elina Secret Garden was the chosen venue for the launch of Teamy Talks, a series of events to talk about the importance of team engagement.

Sponsored by Selina Secret Garden, Humaniaks and Women in Hospitality, Travel and Tech, this event aims to start a conversation between present and future leaders and highlight the importance of having a well built and engaged team. 

How LEGO can help a Team communicate better

The event started with Teamy’s co-founder Filipa Manita, who shared some welcome words and then introduced the first speaker and Teamy Partner, Nuno Maneteiro, who is a LEGO Serious Play Certified Trainer. He talked about how LEGO goes further than building random figures, and how it can be a helping hand in getting a team to get to know each other better and never leave anyone behind. With this technique there’s no room for the “lonely guy”, everyone’s personalities and work methodology come into a play just like they do when it comes to reaching KPIs. 

The Panel

The evening continued with a panel hosted by Humaniaks CEO, João Figueirinhas Costa. He opened a conversation with Nuno Manteiro and Mafalda Garcês, Site Leader & People Partner at Dashlane, about the importance of team engagement in their day to day at work. 
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Here are 10 things/insights we learnt from the three professionals: 

1. Listening is the most important part of engagement. Whether it is formally or informally (engagement surveys, taking people for coffee, focus groups etc.)
2. Genuine and aligned recruitment strategy is the first step for sustained engagement
3. There are ways to keep remote teams engaged.
4. Management has a significant part on engaging the teams.
5. Metaphorical "pizza" is very important but engagement is about culture and the day to day - not about one event that is organized because there is an available budget. 
6. There’s far more to LEGO than building random figures. 
7. Team engagement doesn’t have to be outside of the office and nor expensive. There are ways to do team activities with a low budget or cost 0.
8. Facilitated sessions with specific methodologies (i.e. LEGO Serious Play) can be a relevant tool/format to use for high pressure moments or to trigger specific behaviours.
9. Engagement is caring and sharing.
10. Engagement is the feeling of being heard and respected.

Teamy, being an all-in-one platform for team engagement, we share the same view with these professionals who kindly shared their experience with us. We believe in the importance of caring for a team and finding ways to continually keep them engaged. Culture and team engagement are slowly starting to gain importance in companies, especially startups, because people have started to understand that keeping colleagues engaged and in an atmosphere that is comfortable to them will help perform better. 

To promote the importance of culture and team engagement, we will continue to organise more Teamy Talks. Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest news on Teamy Talks and other Teamy News. 

We hope to see you soon!