One team building exercise I HAD to participate included the following:
Whole supply chain management team gathered in a meeting room.
Dancing for 15 minutes for some stupid music (dancing == aerobics)
Watching “1492: Conquest of Paradise” for like 5 hours as the team building exercise organizer stops the movie every 30 minutes and ask us to get in to groups and make presentations about what Christopher Fucking Columbus did.
This was one of the world’s largest conglomerates and with a well defined HR structure.
I left that cushiony job soon after and joined a small company for higher salary but with crazy working conditions. I sometimes miss the previous company and its’ bullshit. We had a safety briefing every Monday morning from 11-11.30 AM. We discussed subjects such as tropical lightning, how to use the gas cooker etc in great depth with the board of directors.
Ah, Team Building. I think my favorite was probably…
Volleyball.
Picture a volleyball game with nothing but software developers and testers who fall into one of these categories:
[ul]
[li] Are not from the US and have never even seen / touched a volleyball in their lives, let alone have the slightest idea what the rues are[/li][li] Are tiny Asian girls who would probably get hurt if a volleyball were to approach them with any speed[/li][li] Are not very athletic and are not happy AT ALL about having to play a competitive sport in which their lack of athleticism is enhanced and on full display in front of their coworkers[/li][li] Are VERY athletic, competitive and shouty and are rather obviously not happy to be stuck playing a game that was called a “tie” after about two hours and a score of 3-2[/li][li] Find the entire thing so hilarious that they swing for the fences at every opportunity to wind up the people in the previous category[/li][/ul]
What, you mean, “if you don’t want something done give it to too many people”?
My own team has some problems:
half the team in one country, half in another;
Sheboss is a very frustrated mother hen, she’d have us alll huddled under her protective skirts if she could; she would have loved to get rid of me (independent, older, faster, more experienced and with better English skills) only she couldn’t because when she asked the client to evaluate our team I got rave reviews;
bunch of engineer types thrown together doing lots of work which often involves finance, sales, purchasing and Other Things Engineers Don’t Wanna Do;
Megaboss tried to do what you are doing, but thanks Og she wasn’t where I am, so my half of the team ignored her and promptly went back to self-specialization (we didn’t get stuff assigned, but each picked what subjects to work on); guess which half of the team is in better shape and gets more done?;
for most people, this is the first project where they’ve been on board since the beginning: they’re used to receiving a design and being given a piece to implement, so they’re trying to do a design that reproduces exactly what the client does now - so, the first people missing the whole point of “change” is half of the “change team” :smack: and there’s a lot of nervousness about this;
specially as a deadline approaches (we’ve done what was required in time, plus above and beyond stuff, but still people get nervous because there are “holes” in the design, holes that we found out, stuff the client had not thought of).
We’ve discovered that when people start barking at each other, the best solution is some peppermint tea.
Oy. I wasn’t going to go into further details, but this calls up unfortunate memories of the last “exercise” we had. The sad thing is, it started off relatively inoffensively.
First, we played laser-tag. Not so bad. Even kind of fun.
Then, we bowled. I suck at bowling, but I have no emotional attachment to appearing competent at such things, so I didn’t much care about that.
Finally…the line dancing lesson. For an hour. With really, really bad country music. I hate country music, and I detest line dancing. Also, I was incredibly sore from hours of swordfighting the day before for a charity event, so it was physically as well as aesthetically agonizing.
The manager in charge is now aware that, should he attempt such a thing again, he should have a ticket in hand for an immediate flight to some corner of the globe so remote and dismal that I would consider leaving him there a sufficient punishment. He is not aware that such a place does not exist.
Alright, that settles it: I’m staying in school forever.
By the way, those of you who have sold your souls to The Man and are now looking for team-building solutions would do well to take a page from the book of one Mr. Denholm.
You can’t. Give it up. Teams happen, encouraged by management setting boundaries (no backstabbing, no shirking) and then leaving the employees the hell alone to do their jobs–teams can’t be forced into existence. I’m at work to work, not to participate in hugfests.
If you must, here are the basic rules:
a) EVERY team-building meeting is done on the company dime. None of this “Let’s have a pot-luck. Spend YOUR money and time to improve MY company’s morale” crap.
b) During the employee’s regular hours of work (no-one has to come in on their day off, or stay late or come early)
c) Temps are hired to make sure that the real work doesn’t get backlogged. If you can’t do that, split each team into two sub-teams and do meeting twice. You’re not going to get cooperation (or attention) if they’re sitting there thinking “Great. Now I’ve got 2 hours and 18 minutes of catch-up. Oops. 2 hours, 19 minutes :rolleyes:”
d) Remember that personal information is personal. My favorite color? How does that relate to my ability to work here? My funniest memory as a kid? How is that relevant to my job.
e) Remember that “voluntary” really, REALLY means “mandatory”. There’s no such thing as a “voluntary” team-building exercise–even after hours–the person who doesn’t participate will be resented by (and feel suspicious of) the ones who do.
f) The best rewards aren’t certificates or hugs, they’re cash. Or paid time off.
Regarding the “You’re a slut”/burst into tears issue, that’s not a team-building issue, that’s HR-related offenses. Don’t punish the other people on your team because 2 of them are acting like they’re still in high-school.
If everyone is behaving that way, then get them together and lay down the law: “You’re not in high-school. You are adults and professionals and I don’t want any more drama-I’m not paid to be your nanny or therapist. The next instance of name-calling gets a write up. The one after that gets a termination notice–enough of those and the problem will be solved. I don’t give a good goddamn if you like or despise each other, but I do expect you to earn your salary and one way I expect that is that you work together in a professional, businesslike way and get your work done.”
Add in some specific examples, give them a sheet listing the rules that you expect them to work by, have them sign an attendance sheet saying that they heard and understood the new rules and you can have the thing over with 10 minutes. No hugging needs to occur, you haven’t singled anyone out, you’ve set down a clear, unambiguous policy that employees have signed off on understanding. And without once asking a person “If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you like to be?”
Do you leave people alone if they have formed friendships with people they work with? I’m quite sure that HR would be very, very upset by the conversations that my coworker friends and I have after work, or during lunch (which is at a restaurant), due to them being not professional and generally crude and childish.
This is particularly true of dinner conversations, because often we are all in a city where we don’t know anyone else. I tend to look at it as though I may be traveling on business, my time outside the office does not require me to act like I am in the office.
It depends: Is it causing drama during the time you’re on the clock? If not, as far as I’m concerned, if what you do off-property and not on company time is your business. I couldn’t care less. All I care about (as a manager) is what affects an employee during the time I’m paying them.
If your lunch/dinner/after-hours meetings aren’t causing people to call each other “slut” and/or burst into tears during working hours, and as long as there’s no direct-line-of-command fraternization*, it’s none of my business as far as I’m concerned (the HR department may disagree )
*Dating someone you can promote or fire is a no-no
Our last team building was a weekend at the Marriott Cambridge. We had to put up with lots of stupid games and obstacle course nonsense but there was lots of booze, food and dancing at night.
So I call it a win. The clam chowder at Legal Seafood was worth it alone.
This is vaguely related…Have any of you had experience with academic professional development workshops? Breakout sessions and so on?
I find them tedious at best, so I tend not to go. Fortunately, I am not required to go either, and I strongly suspect that many attendees only go because they get service or unit credit (college staff or faculty) if they do.
I can see how the technological seminars would be useful–learning to work with Lotus, for example, or with Blackboard for grading. But some of the others are more questionable: If you can reach 'em, you can teach 'em–that sort of goofy, feel-good, unrealistic motivational stuff; or
How to Deal with the Fact of MultiCulturalism and Plurality and Diversity in the Workplace and the Classroom and the Community at Large–I am paraphrasing, but you get the idea…
Yes, I know where I’m living. Yes, I know there are many people from many countries and races all around me. It’s not news to me. I’m fine with it. I freaking get it. I have been hearing the words ‘multicultural’ and ‘diversity’ for the past 25 effing years. At this point, do people really need to keep hearing about it over and over?
Just asking.
It’s not quite as exotic as it sounds, since the swords are lightweight foam (though relatively realistic in appearance).
My live-action gaming group often teams up with a company that sells foam swords to put on Fight-the-Knight events at gaming/SF/anime conventions. People pay a dollar to participate, which goes to whichever charity we’re collecting for–this particular one was for March of Dimes. We loan them weapons, and they square off against one of the “knights” (our LARP fighters) for about a five-minute fight. When possible, we try to offer them a choice of opponents with single-blade, sword and shield, and Florentine (dual-blade) styles. We get everyone from little kids dressed up as Naruto to kendo experts and do our best to give them all a good, fun fight. We like to have enough knights to rotate people in and out, but we had a line of hundreds for the whole duration of the event, so we all wound up fighting almost continuously for hours.
It’s a fun event, and raises a bit of money for a good cause, but it can be incredibly exhausting.
Not to speak for Fenris or any other manager, but as a temp I’ve had a unique opportunity to see dozens of companies in action. My take on this would be that other than what Fenris has noted, the only other problem would be if you come back to work and act cliquish. Yes, there are people in offices who are friends and who prefer each other’s company, but it really isn’t hard to be inclusive.
)