By each giving 100% as a team, together we can all achieve our summit
I just finished four hours at a mandatory teambuilding workshop, complete with Power Point slides and graphics of pyramids and color blocked charts illustrating our goals. It’s four hours I can never get back. I don’t want to pull a dooce here blogging too much about work, but hooo-whee. At a certain point, buzzwords about team dysfunctions, a culture of trust, and joint achievements just kinda stop sounding like real words and all kind of run together into humming. But at least we got a loosely-related fresh air inspirational video about a guy that took three attempts to summit Mount Everest. And he ultimately achieved it BECAUSE OF HIS TEAM. He let the Sherpa guide summit first! We never climb alone!
I volunteered to be blindfolded for the trust walk (yes, there was a trust walk) because I thought it would be kind of fun to tie on the silk scarf over my eyes and wander gropingly around the office (in my cute new wedge sandals), trying to not trip on anything. And the redemption finally came in that we actually got to watch a clip from The Office (US version). Now that’s what I call a win-win-win situation.
[Demotivator poster courtesy of the wonderful Despair.com]
Name: Heather Browne
I spent two hours myself today in a workplace injury meeting learning what to do if one of my employees are injured on the job. I’m the news editor at a newspaper. Copy editors and designers don’t often cut themselves, pull a muscle lifting heavy objects or hit their heads on machinery. Two hours I’ll never get back — and we didn’t get to watch a clip from The Office. WTF
Jeffrey — May 16, 2007 @ 9:39 pm
I love despair.com with all of my being because of meetings like the one you described.
John — May 17, 2007 @ 8:07 am
I’m so ready to stop working and start robbing liquor stores.
Or maybe start a life of crime on the internet.
Atleast I hope they paid you for that training.
Anonymous — May 17, 2007 @ 9:07 am
Times like these make me glad that I don’t work for corporate America.
JJ — May 17, 2007 @ 9:15 am
I completely understand the sentiment and intention behind this training, like, trying to be proactive in developing an organizational culture of team trust and accountability, however that’s really not something you can make people do with a four-hour powerpoint. As well-intentioned as I was going into it, I honestly feel like I left with absolutely nothing.
heather — May 17, 2007 @ 9:20 am
Way to go on the trust walk, and double kudos for the demotivator from despair.com.
The Rules — May 17, 2007 @ 9:48 am