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Scientific and Academic Group |
A university science lab contacted Sense of Delight to create a teambuilding for an employee appreciation day. Our client at the lab, however, warned us that we could expect great resistance to a teambuilding event. Most all of the participants were scientific and engineering types who were likely to feel they were wasting valuable time away from their computers and their work for something they did not deem important.
Nevertheless, our contact felt it was important to involve the group in a shared activity. There was only one thing to do: handle their resistance up front and use it to help set-up the teambuilding.
The metaphor we chose for the teambuilding was a top-secret building mission from the Pentagon. The first order of the day was dressing up their head boss in an authentic U.S. military uniform (with our trainers decked out in Mad Scientist garb). The “building materials” were then put into “Top Secret” bags. Invited along on the mission was a “world-famous Russian scientist,” as played by one of our multi-lingual trainers. Trained as a Russian translator, our fluent scientist-actress spoke entirely in Russian, with her co-facilitator translating all the arguments that we had been given ahead of time. Happily, a few Russian people in the audience understood the whole dialogue -- that really got the participants on our side! We then introduced the teambuilding by asking everyone to build an invention for the Pentagon. Even the biggest skeptics in the room, got involved. Forewarned about possible resistance, we initially designated one group of people to be “militant anti-teambuilders,” standing by and not doing much. As soon as they saw everyone else engaged and having so much fun, however, they ran over to us and begged to be included, asking for extra time for their presentation. At the end of the teambuilding, their boss came out dressed as a Colonel from the pentagon, distributing medals and prizes for the best inventions. |
Case Histories