The Sandstone Team Building Blog

It will not come as a surprise to our regular blog readers that I like to include examples of team building and working together in the animal kingdom.  But I have decided to take a slightly different approach to this month’s animal entry.  I was reading some of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting to my nephews over the weekend when we got to the bit about this unique and interesting creature known as the Pushmi-pullyu (pronounced push-me-pull-you).  The Pushmi-pullyu is a unique animal with two heads that do not talk or listen to one another.  Instead they always try to pull in different directions to one another.  This causes them nothing but problems as they are always trying to go in two opposite directions, and as a result they never get anywhere.  But if the two heads talked to one another and understood what they each wanted to do, they would be able to work together to achieve both of their desires.

Whilst the Pushmi-pullyu may be a character from a children’s story book, there is a lot that teams can learn from it about how not to work together.  On our team building events we often help teams to find ways to move forward together.  This is usually caused by the fact that not everyone in the team is on the same page and they want to do and achieve different things.  But if they talk to one another and understand each other’s point of views and what they want to achieve, then they can work together to ensure that they are all successful, thus making the team successful.

I might start using the Pushmi-pullyu as an example in our debriefing session!

Nikki

We at Sandstone are very proud of developing what we believe is the first online based team building activity – Space Rescue.  And we are delighted to announce we are in the process of developing a second online team building activity.  For those who know our full portfolio of team building options you will know already about MiniTreasure.  But we are now creating an online version of this activity.  It will offer the same as it currently does, but with the added benefits of virtual teams based across the globe can work on it together.  Likewise it will be capable of being run by a team all in one location should they prefer the online version.

We are excited about this new addition to our team building portfolio!

Alan

Sandstone prides itself in having an elite selection of international partners who are able to sell our team building activities to their market place.  And I am delighted to announce that we have a new international team building partner.  Al Rouya is based in Kuwait and have the rights to the Middle East.  They are management and economic consultants who use learning and development initiatives.  They specialise in experiential learning solutions for behavioural change and leadership development.  They committed to using Sandstone team building activities to add to their offerings for their clients.  Al Rouya, like all of our international colleagues, can be found on our International Partners and Associates page.

Alan

For this month’s team building event of the month we have chosen an absolutely superb Wild West that was held just outside of Glasgow.  The event was held at the beautiful Mar Hall in Morton House.

We knew it was going to be a good event when everyone got into the spirit of the Wild West and wore their hats, bandannas and sheriff badges with pride.

As with all our Wild West events different people took to the different tasks, with potentially one of the best gold panners I have ever seen!  Before she began she ensured that she knew exactly what it was she would be doing and then thoroughly enjoyed herself.  I later found out she was a project manager so I am not at all surprised that she made the time to fully understand what she needed to be doing and looking for before diving head first into the task.

One of my favourite parts of Wild West is when I get to teach the gun slinging skills to a group.  On this event we had two people that had already handled a Colt 45 – albeit not in the manner we use our rubber Colt 45 replicas in Wild West.  But it added a different element, as some people were already accustomed to the gun!

Understanding the importance and benefits of collaboration within and across the teams was one of the aims of this team building event.  And whilst there may have been some different views on working with other teams to start with, by the end of Wild West all teams were working together and understood the benefit of a collaborative approach!

Both our client and our facilitation team had a lot of fun.  A wonderful group of people!

Steve