Sony’s Global Digital Business had capable individuals, but the challenge was to help a group of account managers operate more genuinely as a team.
The desired shift was straightforward to describe but harder to create: greater alignment and focus, better communication, more trust and openness and a stronger willingness to collaborate. Beneath that sat familiar team tensions — territoriality, the balance between competition and cooperation, reluctance to lean on colleagues and uncertainty about what collective responsibility really meant.
MJA’s design began with understanding the people and the context rather than prescribing a team-building event. Individual conversations and self-awareness work helped people understand their own preferences and the strengths they brought. Peer feedback added another perspective: what colleagues valued, what they wanted more of and what might need to change.
The team then looked explicitly at how it was operating against the conditions required for effective teamwork: a compelling shared purpose, complementary contribution, clear collective responsibility and an environment in which people could depend on one another.
An experiential component gave the group a chance to observe itself working together away from the familiar pressures of the day job. The learning came in the reflection: what happened when leadership shifted, how information moved, who stepped in or stepped back and what those patterns might reveal about everyday work.
The process finished with practical team and personal commitments rather than a generic list of team behaviours.
The central shift was from strong individual contribution to collective performance: recognising which outcomes genuinely required the team, and becoming more willing to use one another as resources in achieving them.