World Café: Creative teamwork for sustainable business success
What is a World Café?
The World Café is a creative and interactive method that goes far beyond simple brainstorming. It offers numerous advantages, especially for companies that want to promote teamwork and develop innovative solutions at the same time. In a relaxed atmosphere, small groups sit together at “tables” to discuss a specific issue. By regularly changing tables and taking on board the ideas of others, a dynamic dialogue emerges in which different perspectives converge and develop further. This not only harnesses collective knowledge, but also encourages the creativity of each individual.
But what makes the World Café so valuable for companies?
Promoting team spirit: Open and relaxed communication strengthens mutual trust. Participants see themselves as part of a shared creative process, which improves cooperation in the long term.
Structured and goal-oriented work: Despite its creative approach, the World Café remains clearly structured. This ensures that discussions are productive and ultimately result in concrete solutions that can be used in a business context.
Integration of different perspectives: By regularly changing tables and developing others’ ideas, participants connect diverse points of view. This leads to innovative solutions that are supported by the entire group.
Employee participation and retention: Employees who can actively contribute their ideas and suggestions for improvement feel valued and listened to. This not only increases satisfaction, but also promotes loyalty to the company.
A particular example of this is an event we organised at BITOU in June with 1,000 participants. The client’s goal was to obtain valuable suggestions for improvement from its employees in order to make everyday work more efficient and enjoyable. Despite the impressive size of the group, the World Café proved to be highly effective – every idea was heard, developed further and ultimately transformed into concrete proposals that were passed on to management.
The additional integration of a chain reaction, which was set up across several rooms, strengthened the sense of community and symbolically highlighted the connection between all employees. This combination of intensive collaboration in the World Café and the playful, team-building activity was a complete success and showed how powerful team building can be – regardless of whether there are 10 or 1,000 participants.
The conclusion
World Cafés not only provide a platform for exchange, but also create clear added value for companies. Employees who are actively involved in improvements not only feel more connected to the company, but also contribute significantly to its success through their ideas. No matter how large the team is, this method brings a breath of fresh air to everyday work and leads to real, tangible changes.
At BITOU, we believe that a World Café should be as unique as your company, which is why we only offer this module on request. If you are interested in a World Café, please feel free to contact us for a no-obligation chat.
|Pia Neugebauer
About the author
Pia Neugebauer is the managing director and head of human resources at BITOU GmbH and brings with her many years of experience in human resources management and leadership styles.
With a keen sense for interpersonal dynamics and a great deal of enthusiasm for sustainable change processes, she regularly writes about topics that really help teams move forward.
You can find out more about Pia and her current projects here.
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