Building high performance for growth: teclan x Working With Me™

Jill McAlpine, Working With Me™ creator delivering a presentation with a Martin Irish painting in the background

teclan came to me with a clear direction. They have ambitious growth plans and want to make sure their people and operations were focused and equipped to deliver on them.

Their leadership team was united in making sure their strategic plans were stress-tested and that the team structure and culture were in the right place to make them happen.

Together, we looked at the business as a whole, from the bigger picture down to the habits and decisions that shape the team’s experience of work.

Alongside that strategic and operational review, we brought in the Working With Me™ approach. Read more on the reasons why we implemented the approach and feedback from the team below.

Jill McAlpine, Creator of Working With Me™

Case Study: teclan - Digital Marketing Agency

teclan is a digital marketing agency with high growth plans and an expanding team. Alongside that strategic and operational review, we brought in the Working With Me™ approach to help achieve a high-performance culture in two ways. Firstly, to create more psychological safety across the team.

Change is destabilising in any operation, even in mature businesses like teclan with a strong culture and a track record of growth. That’s why revisiting the “is there psychological safety in the team right now?” question should always be part of any change process.

Creating more psychological safety during change allows team members to step into it, contribute to shaping it, and take ownership.

The Working With Me™ approach is rooted in creating a team of leaders and that has to start with a culture where people can say what they think, knowing the rules of engagement and delivery.

The second reason was to unlock a new level of performance.

That meant understanding each other’s working styles and motivations. We discussed being honest about where expectations sit and what high performance looks like. Together, they set shared standards and defined the rules the team wanted to work to, backed by the principle of “the job always needs done”.

We ran a Working With Me™ workshop to explore how each person operates, what gets in their way, and how to build better ways of working as a team. Alongside, this we looked closely at where time was getting lost, in habits, communication gaps, or ways of working that no longer fit and gave them practical tools to spot and address those patterns.

Then, we worked with the Operations Director to reshape the rhythm of the business. Again, as a mature business with a great approach to people development, teclan already had strong rhythms in place, but as any business changes, so must the rhythms. 

So, we looked at how the team were currently operating and made changes to ensure the check-in rhythm was action-oriented and low admin, and we tweaked clearer lines of accountability.

We loved working with team teclan to support the momentum they were aiming for.

Like many of the teams we work with, they are a team that already had strong values and ambition. What we did was help put the right structures and agreements in place, so their internal operating system could match their level of ambition.

If you are interested in exploring building high performance for growth with your team, get in touch, I’d love to help.

"Jill was exactly what we needed to shake up how we think about our processes at teclan. She quickly helped us identify what was no longer serving us, challenged our assumptions, and gave us the space (and push!) to think differently. Her support helped us strip out dead processes and shift our thinking from short-term fixes to longer-term strategy. The result is a clearer, more focused direction for our digital growth and a team that’s better aligned for the future."

Caitlin Maclean, Operations Director, teclan

The "working with me" approach has been a game changer for work productivity. Previously, everyone in the office would send numerous messages through Microsoft Teams; I found this to be very distracting and felt that messages on this platform required more urgent reading and responding.

Following sessions with Jill, the rest of the team is now more aware and considerate of the messages and the methods used to send them. I have also set notifications to only alert me for messages I am directly tagged in, which prevents distractions and constant context switching. In turn, being more aware of my colleagues' workflows has improved how I work with and interact with others in the team so as not to interrupt their focus and productivity.

Stephen Fuller, Head of Technical + Automation


Inclusive team development for high performing teams

Your team’s operating system for working better together.

A structured, inclusive way to build the rhythms, clarity and working agreements your team needs with a manual that’s designed to be used, not filed away.

Working With Me™ is a practical, inclusive team approach that helps people understand how they work and how to work better together to improve team collaboration, and it’s grounded in something real: the day-to-day experience of your team.

This is a hands-on, team-led process that turns reflection into real high-performance team habits. It helps your team turn honest insight into everyday structure and support.

How the Working With Me™ Approach works

Working With Me™ helps people understand how they work best and how to work better together. It’s designed for founder-led teams, public bodies and organisations navigating change, pace and complexity.

  • We speak with your leadership team to understand the context — your challenges, dynamics, and what’s under the surface and we design the delivery of the approach and workshop to suit your team.

  • Each team member follows our guided process to complete their manual before the workshop. This allows space to reflect and helps people show up with honesty and insight.

  • In a half-day workshop, we get to know each other. They will share, spot patterns, and co-create your team charter and working agreements. Your team will leave with clear expectations, a team operating rhythm, and effective ways of working.

  • You walk away with a living digital manual and a framework with practical tools for everyday use in 1:1s, onboarding, planning and leadership.

Working With Me™ framework in action

Designed for real teams in fast‑changing organisations

Most tools oversimplify people and that’s why they fail to create lasting behavioural change.

Working With Me™ helps your team understand themselves - and each other -in ways that reflect how they actually work, day to day. If we don’t talk about the things that throw us off - like missing a morning run or hitting a low-energy patch, we leave too much room for unnecessary friction.

This approach makes space for that honesty, and it’s that kind of real understanding that drives collaboration, trust, and high performance.

Whether your team has worked together for years or is just forming, this approach creates the space to uncover:

  • What helps each person thrive

  • What gets in the way

  • What others need to know

From there, your team builds practical, shared agreements they actually use. High performance is a shared practice, and this approach is how you keep practising together.

Inclusive by design fostering trust and collaboration

At the heart of this approach is a marriage of person-centred insight and universal design, making space for both individual needs and collective rhythms, laying the foundation for building an inclusive team culture.

Working With Me™ is built to support different communication styles, cultural backgrounds, and accessibility needs, effectively providing neurodiverse and remote team support. That means every voice is heard, whether your team includes neurodivergent thinkers, remote contributors, or people with diverse lived experiences.

Inclusivity is embedded in how we design, facilitate, and follow through.

This approach is ideal for:

  • Growing teams in startups or scale-ups

  • Public sector and third-sector teams seeking an inclusive team culture

  • Organisations looking to improve team collaboration and performance

  • Remote, hybrid or neurodiverse teams that need practical working agreements

Outcomes: team collaboration, understanding and high performance.

Working With Me gives your team a structure they create themselves and one they can actually use, day to day.

Building your team’s unique operating model together

For each person:

  • A personal working manual

  • A space to reflect and share what they need to do their best work

For your team:

  • A shared digital team charter and working agreements, providing clear expectations that the team can revisit and refine

  • Tools and team habits that support communication, development and follow-through

For your leaders:

  • A reliable operating system to support team performance

  • Language and structure for better one-to-ones and reviews

  • Fewer misunderstandings, more focus on momentum

This becomes part of how you work; it’s something you build on and optimise.

Trusted by UK Organisations.

The Working With Me™ Approach has been used by teams across businesses, the Scottish Parliament, UK Parliament, public and third-sector organisations.

What our clients say about the Working With Me™ approach and team transformation.

“It gave us a shared language that we’re still using months later. It’s genuinely changed how we work.”

“I was absolutely wowed by this approach and the fresh perspective on building high-performance teams through becoming more inclusive. We have so much food for thought to take back to our office. I can’t wait to fully implement this into our personal development structure."

As a manager, it gave me insight I didn’t even know I was missing. I’ve adjusted how I lead, and it’s already making a difference”

Frequently asked questions.

  • The approach works best for teams of 4 to 20 people. For smaller teams or larger groups, we can adjust the format and pricing to suit your needs.

  • The main session is a half-day in person. Team members complete a short pre-work exercise beforehand. Team leads will also join a 30-minute discovery call and a follow-up check-in.

  • You’ll receive an engaging team handbook that can be updated digitally as and when your team changes, personal manuals for each team member, a toolkit to support next steps, and a check-in three months later to review progress.

  • In-person delivery is recommended, but a remote version is in development. Get in touch if you'd like to explore a virtual option.

  • Yes, yes, yes! The approach is grounded in universal design. It supports a wide range of working styles and reduces the burden of 'explaining' often placed on neurodivergent colleagues.

  • We prioritise creating an inclusive environment by tailoring our sessions to meet various accessibility needs. This includes accommodating different communication styles, providing materials in accessible formats, and ensuring our facilitators are trained in inclusive practices.

  • Team building usually focuses on fun, one-off activities. Team development, like the Working With Me™ approach, focuses on building habits, shared expectations and sustainable collaboration.

  • Yes – Working With Me™ supports neurodiverse and remote team members by creating accessible, clear working rhythms that everyone can engage with.

  • Absolutely. This approach helps improve team collaboration and creates clarity during periods of change. It’s ideal for fast-moving organisations and founder-led businesses.

Profile photo of Jill McAlpine, Working With Me™ creator

Created in ‘purpose’

“I’ve led big teams, fast teams, political teams and what I’ve learned is that high performance isn’t just about setting the bar high. It’s about creating the right conditions for people to actually reach it. That means understanding how each person in your team ticks - what motivates them, what throws them off, and how they fit into the wider operating system.

As someone with a neurodiverse brain - and someone who’s led neurodiverse teams - I know how important it is to create environments where people don’t have to constantly explain themselves to be included, and how often, even with the best intentions, misunderstanding happens.
I also know we can’t create something perfect, but we can create a contract with each other to figure it out together - imperfectly but brilliantly.

High performance and inclusion aren’t opposites; they go hand in hand.

This approach is about building better workplaces for people and better businesses for the leaders who run them.”

— Jill McAlpine, Creator of Working With Me™