It is May. April has been a strange month with an early Easter and school holidays which were after the event, so children were confused. Then there was all that rain. So here is May and we’re all hoping for some sunshine and some warmth. I have to warn you all that I am finally succumbing to some air conditioning which could put the kiss of death on to a decent summer. Please do not blame me if I have hexed it.

What am I thinking about?

Last month’s Thought started many conversations about where and how we work and whether we want to be together in one place or working from home. A couple of HR buddies were telling me about employers desperate to bring people back into the office at least some of the time; and a change in job applicants’ attitudes where they are seeking to be out at work rather than home at work. People are feeling semi-detached. All very interesting. I was also talking with someone this week about mentoring for secondary school pupils and work experience; where do you find it? It is all a very movable landscape.

However I have also been thinking about all of this in terms of teamwork. I could speak of building a team in a hybrid environment. It interests me. Building a team when you are all in the same place is tough enough. However instead I want to tell you about an organisation which I admire hugely, and which has tackled team building quickly, in a very different environment and working 7pm to 8am. No that is not a misprint – on the night shift.

I do not normally name organisations, but I am going to make an exception and you will see why. I must also say immediately that they have agreed to this public exposure.

I want to tell you about The Kings Arms Project here in Bedford. It is one of a number of charities supporting homeless people and works in partnership with both them and the Borough. However it was they who saw a gap last autumn and took it forward into the only self-referred direct access emergency shelter in town.

The background is that during the pandemic the government launched the Everyone In initiative. This was designed to get the homeless off the streets so that they could be protected from covid. It was a very successful scheme and in Bedford meant all who wanted to come in were brought inside. These arrangements were kept in place well into 2023. However they did came to an end. In Bedford the situation is exacerbated as we are at the end of the rail line and homeless people can get on the train anywhere from Brighton to Bedford, once here they have to get off the train. It means we have more street sleepers than most areas.

Naturally our night shelter provision had been closed as unneeded during Everyone In.

In the late summer 2023 the CEO of King’s Arms Project was passing a young man in a tent every day on her dog walk and realised that when the weather became colder she could not contemplate how vulnerable he would be. She started to put together stakeholders who would fund a night shelter for three months from the beginning of December. (This was extended by a month after it opened.) She is very persuasive and the £70000 needed was promised very quickly.

Plans started to be developed and this is where my admiration of teamwork starts.

An appeal went out for volunteers who would come and cook; for people who would arrive at 7pm; welcome guests; serve a hot meal; settle them in; be on duty overnight and then serve breakfast; all before doing the laundry and turning around the twenty beds to do it all over again – seven days a week. In a trice over 120 people came forward. Some had volunteered before, but most had no idea of the reality of the project, not just a one-off event but probably doing weekly shifts for months.

Now if you have ever had anything to do with volunteers you know they are wonderful people, but they are individuals and usually have strong views about what and how things should be done. They also have other commitments.

KAP had not done this before either. They had to design the space, set up supply chains, organize security and a thousand other things. However it was mainly going to be reliant on the volunteers doing what was needed in the right spirit and repeatedly.

Time was very short, so KAP had time only to design and deliver one training session. Then the CEO’s Executive Assistant started to create teams on the basis of very little knowledge of their skills, experience or personalities. These teams were typically 5 or 6 people with a team leader. They were allocated to the various tasks that would achieve the objectives.

It was hugely successful. The qualitative outcome was 1475 bed spaces and over 3000 meals were delivered. Most importantly around 130 guests were looked after. Or look at it qualitatively, people learnt to work together with common values. They started not knowing each other or the guests. Many had no experience of KAP and their values in delivering support. They were going to look after people often suspicious of any sort of authority with many different needs well beyond the common denominator of homelessness.

Or look at it this way. A couple of weeks ago all the volunteers came together to celebrate what they had achieved. I was there and the way they were greeting each other was like old friends. Straightaway stories were being exchanged – the events which had bonded them, mostly challenging. And also news about how some guests had used the experience as a springboard to find accommodation and in some cases employment. The atmosphere was electric.

I am not sure what was in the training programme or how the different team leaders engendered “team” so quickly. I do know that the volunteers were different ages, different ethnicities, of very different experience and probably every other difference you can name. It seems to me there were major things which made it work:

the volunteers were totally focused on the KAP purpose “No one is too entrenched in poverty that they are beyond help. We refuse to give up on anybody and believe that every person is significant”
everyone was stepping into new territory and so they were ready to adapt processes or create new ones and do it quickly
there was a “no blame” culture. If something went wrong they found a way to ensure it would not happen again. It was all about “let’s do it better”.
there was total respect for each other and the guests, which was often the key factor in making decisions.
there was immediate feedback from guests who were massively appreciative of everything that was done but who were willing to share what made a difference to their lives.
There was a shared sense of what was acceptable performance, and acceptable was around 80% right.

I could go on and on about factors that turn ordinary people into effective teams.

I am sure, like me, you are stunned by what was achieved in a very little time. It was nothing short of a miracle. Now you understand my admiration.

You might want to think about this with your teams and what you might do to achieve such stunning results. There are all sorts of ways to help you. If you want to think more about this why not give me a call and we can speak about your situation in detail. We can talk about your business and what you want from it and your life. I love speaking with people, off the meter, to help them explore possibilities and whether/how to take them forward. I hope you will be one of them.

And KAP has generated huge interest by this project including a visit from the Duchess of Edinburgh. Have a look at a different angle.

LASTLY KAP and all the other homelessness charities, need you to donate all year round so please do not hesitate and do it now.