Client stories: Strengthening Team Communication for a High-Performing Recruitment Firm

mstopforth
May 4
3 min read

Updated: May 14

We partnered with a busy, fast-paced recruitment company who knew that clear, effective communication wasn’t just a “nice to have”, it was central to delivering exceptional service to clients and keeping the internal team running smoothly.

Yet like many growing organisations, they were starting to see the cracks. Day-to-day communication was sometimes messy, with misunderstandings, mismatched expectations, and small missteps that slowed the team down. Leaders recognised that if they wanted to keep scaling successfully, they needed to invest in sharpening how the team connected, aligned, and worked together.

The Challenge

In a fast-moving business like recruitment, it’s easy for teams to fall into autopilot communication, rushing from one task or message to the next without always pausing to check clarity, assumptions, or shared understanding.

For this organisation, the key challenge was to help their team step back and reflect on how they were communicating, not just what they were communicating, and to uncover where small, unseen barriers were undermining trust, collaboration, or efficiency.

The Approach

We designed and delivered an interactive, psychologically informed team development session that combined practical exercises, reflection, and insight-based learning.

Exploring communication blind spots: Through group discussions and real-life scenarios, we helped the team surface where miscommunications had cropped up in the past and how messages were being received or interpreted differently depending on the medium, context, or personal style.

Interactive exercises to test assumptions: We ran memory tasks, command-following challenges, and perception exercises that showed in real time how even the same instructions can lead to surprisingly varied results. This wasn’t just fun (though it was engaging!). It opened the team’s eyes to how easily people can walk away with different understandings, even when working from the same starting point.

Building self-awareness with a communication assessment

We introduced a structured assessment tool to help each team member better understand their natural communication style, how they approach conversations, make decisions, give and receive feedback, and collaborate with others. Together, we explored how these different styles play out across the team, identifying where they create strengths, where they might cause friction, and how the team could adapt to work together more effectively.

Practical strategies for improvement: Throughout, we focused on real, usable strategies the team could take back into their daily work. Simple shifts in language, checking assumptions, or adapting communication methods to fit the situation and person.

The Outcomes

By the end of the session, the team had:

Sharper self-awareness of their own communication habits and styles
A clearer understanding of how their colleagues think, interpret, and process information
Practical tools for improving day-to-day interactions, reducing misunderstandings, and strengthening teamwork

The session didn’t just address communication problems. It gave the team new shared language, stronger trust, and a renewed sense of cohesion, helping them work together more smoothly and confidently as they continued to grow.

Why This Matters

At The Performance Equation, we believe that strong performance comes not just from individual talent but from the dynamics that shape how people work together. When teams understand how they communicate and how to reduce the small frictions and misunderstandings that get in the way. They unlock higher levels of collaboration, trust, and collective success.

This organisation's journey shows what’s possible when a team takes the time to step back, reflect, and build practical, psychologically grounded skills for better performance.