1The Challenge
What was the challenge?
Marks & Spencer came to us with a theme that set the tone for everything: "Show You Care." Not a competition, not a race, not an exercise in outperforming the team at the next table. The brief asked for something warmer and, in its way, harder to pull off.
Most team-building formats generate energy through rivalry — teams push against each other and the buzz comes from winning. That was the wrong instrument here. M&S wanted 45 people to leave feeling closer to their colleagues as people, having done something thoughtful for them rather than something better than them. The challenge was to design an experience where the drive came from care rather than competition, and where 45 participants — many of whom knew each other only in passing — could form a real connection in a single session.
2Our Solution
What solution did we design?
The Bubble Blend Challenge fits the theme precisely. Teams craft personalised soaps — choosing scents, colours, and designs — but with a twist that changes everything: each soap is made for a specific colleague, tailored to their preferences and interests.
That single design choice does the work. To make something genuinely personal for someone, you have to know them, which means you have to ask. Conversations that would never happen at a desk happen naturally over a workbench: what do you actually like, what would you use, who are you outside of this office. The soap is almost incidental; the finding-out is the point.
The challenge builds on three ideas. Connect with clarity — every soap reflects its recipient, so a clear, specific connection has to be formed to make it. Collaboration — teams work together to create meaningful gifts, and the shared purpose strengthens the bonds between them. Care, affection, and empathy — the act of crafting something by hand for a colleague demonstrates real care, creating a warm and supportive atmosphere that lingers well past the session.
Speed Networking ran alongside the Bubble Blend Challenge, opening up connections across the room before teams put them to use.
3How We Did It
How was the programme delivered?
The 45 participants were divided into teams and briefed on the mission: craft personalised soaps for their colleagues, in keeping with the "Show You Care" theme. Teams sprang into action — gathering what they needed to know about their recipients, then choosing scents, colours, and finishes to match.
The session was delivered by a facilitator and co-facilitator, the same pairing that ran Speed Networking, which kept the thread of the day continuous and let the second activity build on relationships already forming in the first. Facilitators moved between teams throughout, keeping the craft flowing and drawing out the conversations that made each soap specific to its person.
The debrief connected the making back to the meaning: what it took to create something genuinely personal, what participants had learned about colleagues they thought they already knew, and what it feels like to receive something someone made with you in mind.
4Key Outcomes
What were the results?
Marks & Spencer's team left with something unusual for a corporate session — a physical object made for them by a colleague, and the conversation that produced it.
The Bubble Blend Challenge delivered on the "Show You Care" theme without ever needing to state it. Participants discovered things about each other that a year of shared meetings hadn't surfaced, and experienced how quickly a workplace warms when people are given a reason to pay attention to one another. The soaps went home with them; the connections stayed at work.