Client Case Study: JPMorgan Chase

Wine Detective

Posted August 3, 2023

Discovering Our Goldmine: Unleashing Team Magic in the World of Banking

Who

The Client

Chase offers a range of services and products for both personal and business. Their team of business bankers are professionals who specialize in helping to improve cash flow as well as providing credit solutions.

Needs

The problem and goals

I often network in the same circles as some of the Chase business solution experts. They are some of the most fun and giving people I have ever met. So I was thrilled when they wanted to talk about having me provide a workshop + wine event to kick off their team retreat.

Goal One: With a remote team, help them to build stronger relationships to ensure they serve the customers using all the strengths and abilities of the individual team members.

Goal Two: Provide an exercise where they could learn more about how the team approaches problems, thinks creatively and works together to find solutions.

Goal Three: Get the team to interact in a fun way to set the tone for the rest of the retreat.

Solution

What we designed

A big thank you to the Cary Chamber of Commerce who allowed the Chase team to use their offices for the event.

It was pretty obvious early into our conversations that this team likes to have fun and is very competitive, so The Wine Detective was the obvious choice.

Wine Detective uses blind tasting as the format to solve different cases with different games for each case. We used the case revolving around Signature Grapes of Key Wine Regions, in order to weave conversation into the theme of “We are a high-performing team where everyone has something unique and critical to offer”.

With an amazing array of charcuterie to snack on and clean palettes, as well as a pre-event wine that someone brought for the set-up team, we were ready!

Specifics

Event details

With most of the team members spread over a geographical area that includes the NE and SE states, we debated doing table assignments, but ended up blind drawing for the teams.

During the case set up, we discussed what makes a signature grape variety and how that is a metaphor for each of us on a team. We talked about team roles and bringing your expertise, as well as hierarchical and consensus decision making and how we would be using consensus style to solve the case.

It was great to observe the groups approach to decision making and who took on what role. Stories were shared, not only because they were fun, but as a way to assess each person’s experience with wine to give them the best chance at winning.

The teams were boisterous and energized, exactly what we wanted for the kickoff event. After we revealed the case solution, everyone stayed to talk, have pizza and spend quality time together.

Beth was very happy with the result and I was very pleased with how the event went as well. I also want to highlight, the team that won scored the most points of any Wine Detective event I have hosted so far this year. Blind tasting is fun, but it is also hard, so kudos to the team!