The Sandstone Team Building Blog

Over the weekend, I saw this article on the ever-excellent BBC News web site.  It describes how a study has found that pupils are “no better than in the 1970s” at mathematics.  It is worth adding that the study also found that they were no worse.  So, interpolating the findings somewhat extravagantly and despite what today’s teenagers may think, there is at least one thing that I am their equal at.  Yes – I am in a small way a contributor to any study that uses the 1970s as a baseline.  Flares, long hair (my younger colleagues here have some difficulty imagining that), Deep Purple albums – I had the lot.  I only have the albums left to prove it and if anyone can help I’d gladly swap them for my old hair back.  You can keep the flares though!

So, despite all the claims of improvement in the education system, individual attainment hasn’t changed much.  They could have saved themselves the cost of the study and just asked us here at Sandstone.  We could have told them that.  There will always be a limit to what an individual can achieve, no matter how talented and committed that individual may be.  The real jumps in improvement come from effective teamwork.

Teams that deliberately choose to improve their performance levels can achieve leaps in their productivity that individuals will only ever be able to dream about.  It really does add up!  The whole can be significantly greater than the sum of the parts when a team’s way of working – its methodology if you like – is pulling its weight.

Too many organisations think that it is enough to just put people together and call them a team without giving them some kind of help to make it all work properly.  Our clients know differently.  They engage us to help turn their individuals into real teams.  We would gladly put up any of our client teams against their 1970s counterparts any day.  And those who opt for our Memory Lane team activity as a part of that process combine 1970s memories with modern efficiency!  It’s kind of fitting really.

It’s been years since, but I think I might just go put on Smoke on the Water now…

Alan