The Sandstone Team Building Blog

Now there’s a subject title.  Planning ahead.

It is something we all know we should do, but is it something many of us actually factor into both our personal and professional lives?

This year I’ve had the pleasure of attending three weddings and I still have another one to come.  Each of these weddings have been different but are just what each set of bride and groom wanted for their day and I am sure that the one to come will be just as fantastic for the happy couple.

But that’s not to say it’s been easy for them.  As all brides (and maybe some grooms) can tell you planning a wedding requires a lot of hard work, time, energy, patience and tick lists!  No wedding just comes together.  A lot of work needs to go into the day.  From choosing your date, to the church and/or venue, to the meal, to the wine, to who you invite to the day and the evening.  Do those distant relatives merit a full day or just the evening??? Who sits next to who for the meal?  Do you want a band or a disco in the evening?  How is the bride going to get to the church?  Who will be the witnesses?  What will the colour scheme be?  The requirements are endless…

Each couple wants to enjoy every moment of their day.  And over the years those couples that have looked the least stressed and enjoyed their special day to the full have, at least in my opinion, been the ones which have planned and planned and planned!  They didn’t leave anything to chance and ensured that they completed each stage within plenty of time.  They had a group of people helping them out with the different elements where possible.  They utilised different people’s skill sets.  They in essenced planned ahead.

Planning can seem like a pain, it can seem like you are always planning and never putting anything in to action.  But in the long run, to make your life easier planning is an essential part of life.

And the same logic can be applied to teams attending our unique team building activities.  Those teams which devise a plan for the activity, and stick to it, and even revise it where necessary, tend to do better then those that don’t.  The reason being everyone knows what it is their team is trying to achieve and how they are going to do it.  They are also trying to utilise all the different skill sets and strengths within their teams.

Now there’s some food for thought …

Nikki

Well ok, maybe the title is a little misleading, as I actually just wanted to talk about lights.

And I can hear you wondering how I am going to relate lights to what we here at Sandstone do on our team building events.  And that would be a very valid question!  So just stay with me here and all will become clear …

I went to Pagazzi light store in Chester recently.  I was told it was a fabulous place to visit as I needed (wanted) to replace one of my light fittings.  The choice was immense.  I was glad when I walked though the door that I had dragged my sister along for the ride – a second opinion is always good!

So again what does any of this have to do with team building?  Well this blog entry is about making the right decisions for what you need and want.  I was looking for a new light fitting for my home office.  It is a room which has a lot of natural day light as it’s south facing, and I use it during the day.  This means that although many of the pendant style lights look stunning, do I really need one in that room with 3, 4, 5 or even more light bulbs?  Realisitcally no.  So I looked at all the different options and figured out which style met my criteria.

* It needs only one bulb

* Suitable for energy saving light bulbs

* To allow maximum light into the room

* To match the colour decor and furniture in the room

* To be nice to look at!

After spending a long time looking at all the options, my sister and I chose the same two shades that we both thought fit the criteria.  We’re talking about a choice in the 100s and we picked the same two.  That’s because I identified what it was that I wanted from the light shade, we both understood that requirement and then set about finding an item which fitted.

And the same can be said for finding the right team building event.  Whenever I speak with a new contact about their event I ask them a series a questions to make sure I have a full understanding about what it is they are looking for and want to achieve from the time they spend on their team building option.  Once I have all the information I can them provide them with information on the most relevant activity, or activities, for them to make their final decision.

This means they don’t need to look through the full details on all our options trying to figure out which is the right one, unless they want to.  They have their requirements, they let me know what they are and then I can help them make an informed choice.

And for those of you that are interested, I chose the prettiest of the two light fittings.

Nikki

I’ve never been someone who has had to have the latest gadgets – I’ve not felt I’ve needed or indeed wanted them.  In fact I’m happy with my Sony camera with it’s 4x optical zoom.  It does everything I want it to.

Or at least I thought it did.

I will soon be going on an amazing safari holiday to Kenya with my sister.  And we’re both very excited.  When we booked it we decided that we wanted a camera which can take high quality photos of the animals.  We didn’t want to come back with sub-standard shots of some blurry animals and have our  nephew ask us is that an elephant, rhino or giraffe!

We spoke to someone in the know and they recommend that we invest in a Sony DSC H20.  It’s a superb digital camera with a 10x optical zoom and I love it!

We didn’t want a camera that required a lot of understanding in how to make it work, and required lots of fiddling with different lenses or buttons in getting the perfect shots.  We wanted something simple.  And this camera has all the elements that newbies like us require in a camera.

We can shoot photos and videos at standard or HD quality.  We can play them back on a slideshow (with a choice of 4 different types of music).  We can change the image and video settings according the weather, the light etc etc.  Or we can use the  simple settings, which to be honest will do most of what we need it to!

This camera has it all for us – all the right elements providing the perfect camera experience that we need.  It has a 10x optical zoom (for when the animals aren’t right next  to our jeep!).  It produces high quality picture and video settings.  It’s quick and easy to turn on.  It’s light weight.  And will nicely fit into our day bags without any worries.

It’s nice when everything comes together to ensure your experience is as perfect as it can be – whether that’s for your new camera or a team building event.  To hear how we can make your team building activity perfect for you, why not give me a call on 01158 715690.

Nikki

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