Strengthify Insights

Team Days That Heal: How to Rebuild Trust, Clarity and Energy

Written by Holger Bollmann | 4 Jul 2025

When trust and clarity feel distant, team days can heal—not just bond—public sector teams.

When Your Team Doesn’t Need Bonding—It Needs Healing

In the public sector—across healthcare, local authorities, universities, and more—teams are often stretched thin by restructures, shifting priorities, and relentless pressure. You may notice the signs:

  • Communication has turned cautious
  • Energy feels flat
  • People are “together,” but not truly connected

In these moments, what teams need isn’t just another away day with flipcharts and energisers. They need space to repair. To understand each other again. To feel seen and safe.

At Strengthify, we help public service teams turn the page through strengths-based team sessions designed not for performance—but for restoration.

The Warning Signs: When Your Team Needs More Than Bonding

You’ve likely seen it:

  • Politeness instead of openness
  • Hidden resentments lingering after change
  • A sharp dip in energy, despite your efforts to boost morale

These symptoms are especially common post-restructure or after high-pressure delivery cycles. Traditional team days won’t solve this—because the issue isn’t skills or strategy. It’s trust, clarity, and emotional repair.

Instead of focusing on surface-level motivation, teams need:

  • Space to talk honestly
  • Tools to understand one another
  • Permission to start fresh

The Strengthify Formula: Safe Space + Shared Language + Strengths

Our approach is grounded in positive psychology and designed with the realities of public sector life in mind.

Whether you’re leading a department in a council, a digital transformation team in higher education, or a clinical team in the NHS, the conditions for rebuilding are the same:

1. A Safe Space to Slow Down
We create settings—virtual or in-person—where people don’t feel rushed or judged. Where honesty becomes possible. Where teams can breathe.

2. A Shared Language to Decode Difference
We use a strengths-based framework that gives teams constructive language to talk about how they work, how they communicate, and where friction arises—not as fault, but as difference.

3. Strengths Awareness to Reignite Connection
Rather than rehashing what’s not working, we help people rediscover what is. What energises them. What they bring to the table. And how to notice and value that in others.

This mix of insight and safety leads to powerful moments:

“I didn’t know you felt that way.”
“Now I see what you were trying to do.”
“Let’s try a new way forward.”

Real Story: Two Welsh University IT Teams Reconnect

During a joint Discovery Workshop, IT teams from the University of South Wales and Cardiff University came together following a period of challenge and change. On the surface, collaboration was happening—but underneath, communication was strained, and morale was patchy.

In the workshop, participants:

  • Explored the pressures each team had faced during digital transformation
  • Used strengths-based tools to surface patterns, values and blind spots
  • Discovered new ways to collaborate based on energy and empathy—not just expertise

One participant said:

“I’d been assuming they didn’t care. But hearing their side changed everything.”

Following the session, the teams implemented strengths-based check-ins and more inclusive planning rituals. The result? Renewed trust, clearer collaboration, and a sense that cross-team work no longer felt like a battle.

Read the full story →

Why It Works: From Deficit to Discovery

When people feel fractured, the instinct can be to fix. But Strengthify takes a different path—one rooted in discovery.

Instead of starting with “what’s wrong,” we start with:

  • What energises your people
  • What’s already working
  • What difference could look like

This isn’t about avoiding problems—it’s about surfacing them in a way that’s safe and productive. And it works. In our Public Sector Engagement Insights Report, teams who felt understood through strengths showed stronger collaboration and retention over time.

Ready to Reconnect?

Whether your team is facing restructure, burnout, or just a loss of spark, it’s possible to move forward together.

We can help you:

  • Create space for honest, constructive dialogue
  • Develop shared language to navigate difference
  • Equip managers with tools to lead ongoing repair and growth

Explore our Discovery Workshops

Dive into our Burnout Prevention Blog 

Learn about our Management Development Programme