Employees Were Paddled And Had Pies Thrown In Their Face - Team Building Events

Illicit Corporal Punishment: Spanked Employee receives 1.2 million

"Employees [of Californian home security company] Alarm One Inc. were paddled with rival companies' yard signs as part of a contest that pitted sales teams against each other, according to court documents.

The winners poked fun at the losers, throwing pies at them, feeding them baby food, making them wear diapers and swatting their buttocks."

-Printed in "World Corporal Punishment Research" ;US Domestic April 2006.

As I read this article I thought, "is this what organizations think team building is supposed to be?" I had visions of an executive team discussing this idea and thinking that it is a great way to boost morale.

Sadly this is just one of the many areas that culture and the world view as team building, a gladiator type competition placing one department against another. The odd thing is that most of the times these team building (I use the term loosely) activities are totally lacking in meaning and are sold as a mandatory event that will increase sales and boost morale. The idea that a pie in the face, and a good paddling by your co-worker is going to encourage team members to wish to work together and create shared goals is ludicrous.

These activities as team building ideas usually start off harmless enough, the team is lacking camaraderie or they wish to interject some fun into the executive or any other department. They toss out some ideas and then it generally becomes a "Survivor" type game.

I recall one group I was brought in to consult, after a preliminary meeting and a needs assessment the executive team saw that trust and communication were lacking between the sales and engineering teams. I suggested several team program ideas that could be done to increase the communication and raise the trust levels. Two days later the VP of operations comes back to me with the idea to have the sales team and engineering team compete in a series of challenges (they created all these challenges, and totally threw out my proposals) to accumulate points. These points would count as bonuses in their salaries. I severely objected to this idea, the team was set on doing it and we chose not to work together. 6 months later I receive a phone call from the VP of operations, "things are worse than ever, we have lost 3/4 of the prior work team". The reason that the VP of operations stated for the turnover was that the team members felt uncomfortable with each other and that the environment is hostile (I wonder why).

Team building events can be fun, and meaningful. This is easy to achieve and you must be realistic in what can be done. To create a true change takes an investment in the people and a fresh look at the team. For this to be done all you need is to change the event format so the event has common goals for all participants, making people cooperate, not compete. The event rewards those who get good results but also those who help others get good results and those who help make it a nice experience for everyone. You take plenty of time to let participants reflect on how the learnings from the event can be applied in their work.

You may not get the same hectic mood you get from those intensely competitive events - but that's actually a good thing.

What you would get instead is an event that increases learning, lowers turnover, and creates happier work teams! Without pie on their face, or a sore Buttocks.

-Michael Cardus is an Adventure Consultant for Create-Learning-Team Building, Headquarters in Buffalo NY

http://create-learning.com/