The Sandstone Team Building Blog

Almost two years ago I wrote a blog in April 2008 about Team Building the Elephant Way.  I described how elephant herds work together.  Well I’m about to take that one step further and actually show you an amazing feat of team work from a herd of elephants.  They are  working together to save one of their own – a young elephant calf.  You can view the footage for yourselves at wimp.com.

This is an amazing feat of working together.  It’s been known for elephant calves to fall into watering holes and be unable to get out.  Sometimes, as in this case, the herd is able to rescue the calf, other times they are not so fortunate.

On this occassion though the family was successful.  They used many the many different strengths within their herd – often things our clients like to chose from a session, such as:
* Break down barriers – physically!
* Collaboration
* Communication
* One team focus
* Problem Solving
* Understand each other’s role

Well perhaps some of the above are more obvious then others.  let’s take them each in turn.

Break down barriers – well this was physically done at the end, with the elephants that had joined the calf in the water creating a path for him or her to climb back up on to land.

Collaboration – they had to work together to get the calf out.  If only one elephant tried to help, there would have been a much lower chance, if any of success.  They all worked together undertaking different roles, some talked, some joined the calf in the water, others were helping from the banks.

Communication – this might have been less obvious to some.  Elephants do talk to one another, humans though are unable to hear everything which they say, often they use very low frequency rumbles.  The elephants were talking to one another to understand the different roles they eached played, and they also talked to the calf to keep him or her calm and to do the different things they wanted him or her to do to help get them out safely.

One team focus – perhaps one of the more obvious!  The all had the same focus, they all wanted to get ther calf out safe and sound and back with the herd.

Problem solving – again one of the more obvious.  The problem – how do we get this calf out.  The solving – well first two of the elephants tried to support the calf with their trunks to help him or her climb out.  When this didn’t work, one of the females, perhaps the mother, joined the calf in the water to get them back out the way they came in by pushing them up.  When that didn’t work they tried another solution.  A second elephant joined them in the water and they found an alternative route out.  They found a less steep slope and worked away at the mud to create a path that the calf could use to climb out.

Understand each other’s role.  Through talking with one another they understood what each individual was doing so they didn’t get in one anothers way.

As I said earlier an amazing feat and a fantastic example of individuals working together.

Nikki

I stumbled across an academic paper the other day that really gladdened my heart.  We have long believed that the image that the phrase “team building” conjures up in most people’s minds – a group of people doing something physical outdoors, be it in a field, half way down a cliff or suspended in mid air in a variety of ways – is about as far away from actually building a team as you can get.  Feel free to view this article for more detail on our thoughts on this matter.  But this blog entry isn’t about our thoughts.  It’s about the thoughts of Dr Gene Benter, an International House Professor currently plying his trade in Saudi Arabia, the author of said paper.  It’s several pages deep and if you really want you can read the full article here or here.  But I think a significant chunk of it is wrapped up in his final conclusion.  Time to share some wonderful phraseology that sums up our own approach…

“Team building activities such as mountain climbing, cooking contest, and fire walks are ineffective exercises to develop team work because what is at stake in these activities is survival and not camaraderie.”

I love it.  In my view, these kind of team sessions can do more harm than good.  It’s one thing for an organisation to choose to use outward bound type sessions to test and develop people who have put themselves forward as potential leaders, managers etc.  It is quite another to subject every team member to something that, for some of them, is their very idea of hell.  He goes on to say that…

“Giving rigorous and difficult exercises for team building only discourage participants to commit themselves to the firm.  It is good to remember that people join the workforce to earn a living and not to subject themselves to pain and hardships.”

Dr Benter, you have at least one fan here – and a whole portfolio of activities that comply with your clearly well researched view.

Alan