The Sandstone Team Building Blog

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