Team demotivation
Years ago the company I worked for invested a huge proportion of its annual profit for a "performance consultancy" to take the sales team off-site for a 2 day motivational course in Brighton. The sales team consisted of eight people of varying age and experience.

Legend has it that the senior management team had full disclosure of the agenda and had approved it prior to the trip.

The first day and a half was bog-standard fare, so team-building exercises, presentations and strategic planning and a heavy night on the piss. Nothing offensive, but also nothing worth paying an outside company for.

The final afternoon was the stuff of legend. Every person was sent away for an hour to compile a dossier on every other member of the team. Their profiling should include two things they liked about each person and one thing they disliked.

After the hour was up we regrouped and took it in turns to say our piece to every other member of the team. Two things became quickly apparent:

1/ It was clearly hard for people to come up with two things they liked about their colleagues.

2/ People were not content to only list one thing they disliked.

It was a horrible session that culminated in three people taking the train home early and four people resigning the following Monday morning.

Money well spent.
(BinDipper, Thu 23 Feb 2012, 15:39, 13 replies)

this gets a click

(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Thu 23 Feb 2012, 15:42, closed)

needs

more

line

breaks.

other than that, i made someone cry on a teambuilding week once. happy days.
( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Thu 23 Feb 2012, 15:51, closed)

Just don't get me started on teambuilding
just don't.

OK, too late.

FUCK teambuilding.
(username failed moderation, Thu 23 Feb 2012, 15:53, closed)

Sounds disturbingly familiar.
I once participated in a similar 'bonding' exercise in which we had to list the qualities and faults of our colleagues, not including the team leader (who had assigned us the exercise in the first place). Of course someone misunderstood the instructions and slagged off the team leader, who laughed it off in an "I'm too professional to lose my cool and kick all your teeth out but senior enough to show how much I'd like to" manner.
( .Yeti. El amor en los tiempos del cólera, Thu 23 Feb 2012, 15:56, closed)

Christ
If I had to list two good things about my manager right now I'd start with:

"Well, she seems nice..."

That would be about it, I think.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Thu 23 Feb 2012, 16:11, closed)

If I was asked to write down two nice things about a female
colleague, I know it's wrong, and all that, but I would just have to write "her tits".

Fortunately, wild dogs wouldn't drag me to a teambuilding exercise, so it's moot anyway.
(username failed moderation, Thu 23 Feb 2012, 16:15, closed)

We just go hiking in the foothills of the mountains.
We have a picnic. We make a lot of noise to scare bears. Laugh at each other when we fall over, laugh even more at the people who are really scared of bears, have a barbecue, then go home tired and happy with stunning pictures of amazing views.

I'm sure it's a cunning device to force us to bond or something but I don't care.
( Infidel , shit and wrong, Thu 23 Feb 2012, 16:55, closed)

tits?

( fluffybunnykiller Is feasting on the clitoris of life, Thu 23 Feb 2012, 21:48, closed)

now that is the way to effectivly downsize a comany with out incuring additional costs

( fluffybunnykiller Is feasting on the clitoris of life, Thu 23 Feb 2012, 21:47, closed)

auto redundancy
click from me too
(justin(e), Sun 26 Feb 2012, 13:08, closed)

Teambuilding exercises are wank
I seriously do not understand the point of them at all. They drag you offsite, usually to a hotel, make you do a bunch of pointless Edward de Bono style exercises and then the next day you're back at work having learned nothing whatsoever.

Perhaps it's how HR and senior management justify their existence by participating in this shit, but to me they're an utter waste of time and money.

If you want a team to bond, send them to the pub or a fancy meal. After work.
(MagicMoose, Thu 23 Feb 2012, 23:22, closed)

I couldn't agree more, I refuse to work for major companies, I enjoy being able to punch staff whilst getting a basketball thrown at my head from the owner across the warehouse. Paff
(feedingtimeatthezoo day 1 of his bikini diet started, Fri 24 Feb 2012, 3:04, closed)

That sound sarcastic, but was a really brilliant company.
(feedingtimeatthezoo day 1 of his bikini diet started, Fri 24 Feb 2012, 3:05, closed)