An organisation’s capability to build agile, solid, and high-performing teams is essential to take advantage of arising opportunities, address challenges, and improve existing internal processes. The ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE) as a regional energy body representing the interest of 10 ASEAN Member States (AMS) in the energy sector, has recognised the significant impacts of COVID-19 on the business and human resources process. Despite its new way of working, the ACE management team must continuously drive its members to perform three critical ACE roles as catalyst, think tank, and knowledge hub.

To maintain ACE’s productivity to support the Member States, the ASEAN-German Energy Programme (AGEP) phase II, a jointly implemented project by the ACE and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), supported the institution to participate in series of leadership and managerial training programme from March to May 2021.

One of the training is building an Agile, Solid, and High Performing team conducted on 25-26 March 2021. The training is aimed at understanding the personality and define actions to progress cohesive team members. The training provided theory and practical exercise on creating a high-performing team by enabling trust and building complementary strength and characteristics. This training prepared ACE managers in building strong collaboration between the internal team and even cross-function departments.

Mr. Septia Buntara Supendi, one of ACE managers who participated in the training, shared his experience and highlighted that the training motivated him to share more positivity and provide insight on how to shape people’s tendency to behave, contribute, and productively interrelate with others. “The positive attitude is a foundation to maximise our potential and build trust in a team. It will not be there unless all the team members respect each other and prevent concern about gender, religion, race, age, and culture diversity”. HM/SB