The Sandstone Team Building Blog

My colleagues rarely trust me with blog entries at all, let alone the coveted team building event of the month entry.  But I pushed my case for this one and somehow won the day.  In my role as a specialist, I get to handle quite a bit of the out and out fun elements of our activities.  For Romanbar, the activity at the heart of my selection for August, I run the bar flair sessions, teaching people the tricks that Tom Cruise got up to in the film Cocktail.  If the group is a large one, say over 150 people, I might not have the time to do anything else.  The smaller the group, the more elements I can get involved in.

The event I have chosen was held at the Swissotel “The Howard”, close to the banks of the Thames.  We are often fortunate to have really good contacts at our venues and the Howard ranks amongst the best for customer service we have experienced anywhere.  So we were in a good mood before we took over the afternoon for our clients, but we weren’t sure about our participants.  We knew that they had been engaged for a day and a half already in difficult and demanding business sessions and hoped that we could lighten the mood, as it were, quickly.  They were a small group – only 8 participants – and that can be challenging too.

But we needn’t have worried on either count.  Each and every one of them got into the activity immediately.  They were well on top of the business decision making that is such an important part of Romanbar, but they also threw themselves into the more fun tasks.  Our Karaoke machine may have heard better singers (sorry team) over the years, but it has never heard more dedicated team players doing their bit for their bars.  Fantastic fun!

Come the cheese rolling race in the grand finale, the noise levels peaked and the result was hotly disputed.  We made the decision, of course, and later analysis of the video taken of the race proved us correct.  Phew!

Although I’m never trusted with handling the debriefing session – even I admit it isn’t my forte – I do enjoy watching and listening in on a good one.  And this seemed to me one of the best.  They really got into the debrief and uncovered plenty of instances of how Romanbar had mirrored real life for them.  They focused on those aspects that were most important to them and came up with an action plan that sounded to me a pretty good one.  If they throw themselves into that the way they did into bar flair, they’ll certainly see improvements in their team effectiveness, I’m sure.

I enjoyed writing this.  I might try and sneak in another event of the month soon…

Steve

I was recently at Chester Zoo in the Spirit of the Jaguar Enclosure.  The enclosure is designed for the Jaguar’s, as such you don’t always get to see them.  But you will see the Leafcutter Ants which have their own enclosure within the wider Jaguar house.  I always find it fascinating to watch these animals as you see them carrying segments of leaves along the branch into their nest.  After my latest visit I decided to see what I could find out about these ants.

Chester Zoo have a page dedicate to the Leafcutter Ants or Acromyrmex octospinosus if you use their Latin name, which provides an overview of the ants.  But I wanted to look deeper, I wanted to know more about their hierarchy and how they work together.  As there appears to be too much structure to what they are all doing for it to be random individuals.  It is a team of ants working together for the common good.

I did some research and found this article on Wikipedia which I found very informative!  Not only did I find out there are 41 species of Leafcutter Ants but it helped me understand their structure.  Leafcutter Ants broadly have 4 castes (teams) who each focus on different areas and their key strengths for the common good of the colony.  They have the Minims, the Minors, the Mediae and the Majors.  Each of these different castes have different strengths.  The Minims tend to the growing brood or care for the fungus gardens.  The Minors are the first line of defense and continuously patrol the surrounding terrain and vigorously attack any enemies that threaten the foraging lines.  The Mediae are the generalised foragers, who cut leaves and bring the leaf fragments back to the nest (the ones who enthrall visitors at Chester Zoo).  And the Majors act as soldiers, defending the nest from intruders.

Each of these 4 castes have different skills sets and body structures which make them superb at their individual roles.  However, the colony needs all of them to survive and indeed thrive.  Likewise if the Minims and the Majors swapped roles the colony would suffer as these are roles neither of them are suited to.  The colony has grown and adapted to their strengths and know what each caste can offer them.

What an excellent example of using different skills sets and strengths within a team to maximise their ability to work together.  We could all learn a thing or two from these Leafcutter Ants.

Nikki

I have been looking through all of our past blog entries, of which there are a few!  And I realised that we don’t actually have a blog which defines the phrase ‘team building‘.  So any guesses what this entry will be about?

According to my copy of the Oxford English Dictionary from 1997 the definition of the word ‘team’ is “a set of players; a set of people or animals working together”.  The definition of the word ‘building’ from the same dictionary is a “house or similar structure”.

So if you put the two together you can take the meaning to be a set of people working together within a structure.  And to be honest that isn’t a bad definition.  Team building as we deliver it, is a group of people who work together taking part in one of our structured activities to help deliver their desired outcomes, whether it is a more learning-focused activity or a more light-hearted fun activity.

And as a last thought the Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘teamwork’ as “organised cooperation”.  I think I would have to agree with them there.

Nikki

I bought a new tent the other day – a Vango Icarus 500.  This is the first tent I’ve bought it some years.  In fact it’s been quite some years since I’ve even been camping!  We used to go a lot when my children were younger.  And that was a big frame tent!  It was also heavy, cumbersome and took a fair bit of time to put up using the poles that we had.   I knew since I’d last bought a tent that the materials and designs have changed, with the aim of making life easier.  The tents become easier to put up and lighter to move around.

And why is this?  Well tents have changed with the times.  As new fabrics and materials that have been developed that work with tents, they have been redesigned to make the experience better for the end user – us.

And well that’s true with so many things.  Taking our unique team building activities for example, we utilise modern technology hand in hand with our facilitation team to help our events run smoothly.   This combination allows our clients to have a fabulous experience, whichever team building option they have chosen.

Maybe the idea of changing with the times isn’t a radical idea these days, but it doesn’t mean it’s not a good thing to do!

Oh … and if you can please keep your fingers crossed that it doesn’t rain too much on us when we eventually go camping that would be great!

Barbara

11:00AM, late July, central London.  The Hilton Hotel at Paddington Station to be precise.  Who would have thought that, just 2 hours later, this group of 30 people would have had – shall we say – interesting conversations with both Hotel Security folk and their Network Rail equivalents?  Certainly not the group members themselves at the start…

Vision Idol does that.  It gets people so focused, so involved, so enjoying themselves that little things like dressing up as a dominatrix – complete with whip – and flogging an (albeit rubber) chicken to (albeit thespian) death are all part of the activity.  Anyway, I guess that hotel security needed reassurance that the chicken wasn’t recently last seen in their kitchen (or, worse still, shortly to make its way into it!) and that the whip would not be used on other guests.  Then they were happy enough.  Network Rail were probably just curious to know why the pilot of Thunderbird 1 of International Rescue fame was carrying a Dalek on the up escalator.  Whether their concern was that International Rescue felt the need to visit their station or that a Dalek was in attendance was unclear.  Still, they seemed happy enough at the end.  As were plenty of open-mouthed passengers on the down escalator!

If none of that makes sense, you’ve clearly never attended – and indeed never seen any photos from -  a Vision Idol event.  Tremendous fun is always had by all.  Equally importantly, the photographic evidence is always a great reminder of the conference theme for the day and the team development gained.

A great event populated by fantastic people from a new client.  I think even the chicken enjoyed it.

Alan

Ok, yes I know this is a somewhat odd title.  I recently had a couple of days annual leave in London.  Whilst there I visited a couple of attractions – namely Madame Tussauds and the London Sea Life Aquarium.  And I thought it would be a great opportunity to have one of our team building blogs relating to this – plus we’ve never had a blog about the ocean!

I have to say I was quite impressed with the Sea Life Aquarium.  It was a nice experience.  Whilst there I overheard a young lad ask his dad why the sharks weren’t eating all the other fish in the same tanks as them.  A great question from a young child – no doubt something a few adults themselves have also wondered.  Well the simple answer is that the staff keep the sharks well fed so they don’t get hungry and want to eat the other fish!

He then asked why the sharks had the smaller fish following them around – weren’t they scared?  Well at this point a member of staff explained the symbiotic relationships that the sharks have with the fish and the oceans.  The smaller fish follow the sharks and eat the ‘left-overs’ or smaller particles of food the sharks don’t want.  The sharks are happy to let them as the smaller fish keep them clean, by eating any organisms that settle on them.  Granted this is more applicable in our great vast oceans, but a change in location doesn’t mean that the sharks and the fish don’t work together for their common good.

The common good.   Now there’s a thought…

A good fun and informative day!

Nikki

Hi Everyone

I thought you might like to know that we have decided to add to our service to both existing and new clients.  In the next week or so we’ll be sending out our first ever email newsletter.  We plan to send it quarterly to clients and new subscribers.  All subscribers will be able to manage their subscriptions online at our web site.  The details on how to do that will be in each and every newsletter.

Each newsletter will have a variety of articles – information that we’ll be keeping you up to date with, puzzles, special offers and all sorts!

Coming soon…

Barbara

I thought we would be amiss if we didn’t have something here that tied in to the World Cup fever from South Africa.  I’ll admit I’m not the world’s hugest football fan but I do enjoy watching the odd match and I always want our national team to do us proud.  Though on this occasion England didn’t perform as we all hoped and didn’t go as far as we all dreamed.

So what went wrong?  Well as I have already confessed I’m not the world’s biggest fan, so it would be a bit difficult for me to critique the team in football terms.  But I do know a thing or two about teams, and it is that approach that this blog is about.

Our definition of a true team is one in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.  Ideally, all the team members should understand this and identify team and individual approaches to help achieve such a state.

So did our team and the coaching staff identify this for the England team?  One would have to say probably not in South Africa or indeed in the immediate run up to it.  We had a team of talented players, who perform week in and week out at club level.  But at club level they are not a selection of individuals, they are part of a team.  They spend a lot more time together, they train together, they identify their different strengths and weaknesses both individually and as a team.  They work together on the pitch to utilise each of there strengths.

When it comes to the England team, it seems to me that each player is selected on their strengths rather than how they fit into the team.  I may not have the pedigree of Fabio, but picking Gerrard for his talents and then sticking him on the left wing seems to me to be saying “we want you Stevie even though we’re not quite sure what to do with you”.  Crazy.  Surely that will always lead to the best individuals being picked and not the best team.  We should be looking for complementary strengths not just strengths alone.  So instead of having a strong cohesive team we ended up with Fabio’s best 11 individuals..

So what do you get from this?  Even the best players still need to identify how they work together as a team.  It’s not enough to be one of the best individual talents.  You need a team whose whole is greater than the sun of the parts.

Well done to Spain – in my opinion the right team won and maybe we’ll take the title from you in 2014!

Nikki

For June’s team building event of the month we have selected a superb ten-team Romanbar event.

Romanbar was held in Luton, not too far from the M1.  We found it hard to believe we were that close when we were at the fantastic Luton Hoo Hotel – they have some amazing grounds.  We were keeping our fingers crossed for sunshine so everyone that wanted to was able to go outside and enjoy the grounds and weather!

We were running Romanbar in the afternoon to complement the morning business meeting.  Both sessions were being held in different rooms allowing us to set-up everything without giving any clues away.

When the client entered the room after lunch they were intrigued as they saw the different stations set-up around the room – karaoke, cocktail layering, the wine connoisseur challenge to name a few.  It was very different from their morning!

From the word go everyone got involved in everything and with the beautiful weather we were able to run a number of our challenges outdoors and they could enjoy the grounds and sunshine.  The flair bar skills session revealed a few budding wannabe Tom Cruise’s from the film Cocktail and the cheese rolling revealed their extrermly good-natured competitive behaviour.  My personal favourite was the karaoke – they gave it their all!

We had some great team decisions and scores, as well fabulous fun!

A great event.  We enjoyed it, the client enjoyed it and importantly they got relevant learning out of Romanbar.

Nikki

For May’s team building event of the month we have selected a superb three-team Liberation event.  It won hands down!

Liberation was held in the beautiful city of Cardiff, not far from Cardiff Castle at the SWALEC Stadium.  From the moment we arrived the venue staff were very helpful.  We mostly judge venues on their staff and this one scored highly.  Anything we asked for was sorted out very quickly and with smiles.  We knew from the off that this was shaping up to be a good day.

As the participants arrived they were intrigued.  We had the room all set up, but none of them knew what they were doing.  This was the first stage in a 7-month development programme for them and anticipation was undoubtedly mixed with a fair amount of apprehension.

The client had selected three of Liberation’s optional extras to maximise the learning benefit for the group.  They chose a tailored debrief to maximise the relevancy of the learning, “Wired” (where they get to meet a hostage taker) and “Connections” (where they meet with the press).

There was a lot going on for them to deal with, but deal with it they did!  As always with Liberation, we had teams dealing with the same situation in different ways – each exploring what they believe to be the best way for their team to succeed.

It’s not unusual for us to have one or two observers from the client in Liberation.  This time we had a few more then usual.  The full  programme gives each leader a coach.  Each coach focused on two people.  In Liberation we always encourage the groups to take their learnings and move forward using the action plans they develop during the debrief to help them back at work.  With this client, we are very confident that both the participants and the coaches will work together to ensure each individual gets the maximum from both Liberation and their long term development plans.

A great event.  We enjoyed it, the client enjoyed it and importantly they got a lot of relevant learning out of Liberation.

Nikki