A Team Player

On a flight back home after two charged days at an offsite, reflecting on what really is team dynamics.

Firstly to provide the reader with an understanding of the format. This program was structured in a theatre workshop style. On day one, we first started with a simple exercise, a notch above dumb Scheherazade. One member  of the team received a role and had to silently enact it - in the sense be the charachter. The others had to guess his part. The role had a particular emphasis element which had to be correctly interpreted eg first time air traveller or man taking dog out for morning walk - where the first or morning had to be guessed correctly. It was amazing how colleagues just slipped into the part impersonating young, old, ailing or opposite genders, without any hesitation. Clearly lessons learnt were planning, passion and team engagement (inputs) led to correct answers (output). What I observed was reticent colleagues twisting into ridiculous postures, shy ones breaking into a jig, lying down on the floor - in that moment totally lost in the role.

The second round had a higher order of challenge. Here, one person had to play the lead. The other four to five team members had to interpret and join in, playing their own parts (without prior consultation). So, if the lead was doing a jig and bowing with folded hands, others had to correctly understand he was the bridegroom and seamlessly join the wedding party. The takeaways were on need for leader to understand with full clarity his role, demonstrate purpose and vision and communicate clearly. Team members who had never worked together (some even meeting for the first time) as well as those who had their daily workplace bouts coordinated like a well orchestrated choir.

For day two we were given a topic and asked to construct our own skit - storyline, charachters, dialogue, props, costumes - the works and put up our show. Male colleagues cheerfully stepped into roles of pregnant woman and gangster's moll (Mona darling). At the planning stage individual skills were recognised and roles for dialogue writing, prop preparation and setup were assigned with astute judgment. The actual part in the play was either taken or assigned in full consensus mode. There was no heighrarchy in this teamwork but just a clear recognition of the right talent.

As the flight touches down I am challenged with the thought of how to get this great set of colleagues to make the workplace a permanent stage and every week a box office hit.