Team building: survival courses etc

[meic]

They could play cops and robbers.

[Cunobelin]

Last year or year before there was a complaining article about the Police using riot shields as sledges

[Cyril Haearn]

Last year or year before there was a complaining article about the Police using riot shields as sledges

Swords to ploughshares, +1!

The G20 summit was held in Hamburg this year, thousands of cops from all over Germany were ready for duty, they spent a lot of time waiting. One group from Berlin had a wild party and posted it on farcebook. Their superiors were not amused, but a club in Berlin offered them free tickets. Maybe the Polizei already have enough Teamgeist, team spirit

[661-Pete]

These happenings are toxic, and well I know it!

OK, I only had one experience in my working life, and that was enough. Some 25 years ago. None of this silly zipwire or abseiling stuff, mind - it was all conducted decently indoors, in a room in a hotel (somewhere in the Southampton area, as I recall - a 2-day session). And we the victims were hardly 'management' material - merely the lowly workers who got the jobs done.

Right at the start, the team of 'management consultants' (or whatever they called themselves) who were running the affair, announced that any one of us could decamp at any time, but if we did, we'd not be allowed to return. That sounded ominous! And what they didn't add was, "...and your HR file will be marked accordingly...."

OK: task no.1: split us into two teams and set us to doing a jigsaw puzzle. What that has to do with 'team building' I'll never know. The jigsaw supplied - well, it wasn't the infamous 'baked beans' one, but something almost as nasty. Not really my metier, but I did my best to contribute to the effort. How do a group of people 'cooperate' in solving a jigsaw puzzle? Search me.

In the summing-up after the exercise, I was fingered out as having 'dominated' the team. Well I never! I began to suss that the point of the exercise might be to pinpoint the 'loose cannons'. And I suppose I must have been the loosest cannon on board. Was I?

Next exercise was slightly - ever so slightly - more meaningful: design a coffee machine. Way outside our normal sphere of activity (I was a humble software engineer) but what the hell! At this point I (and my team-mates) decided to play silly-b*****s and design something impossible to manufacture and guaranteed not to function. But what of it! More finger-pointing from His Worship the Chief of the 'management consultants' after this one. At this point, with hindsight, I wish I'd not merely decamped, but had marched straight up to His Worship and punched him squarely on the nose. But I did neither of these things.

I forget what happened after this, not surprisingly, but I remember departing the venue in a pretty foul mood. In fact I was minded, back at work, to march into my Line Manager's (who'd set this all up) office, and punch him squarely on the nose. In which case, I'd probably be making this post from a cell in the Scrubs or Wandsworth. But I desisted. I did venture into his office and give vent to a few choice words (not permitted on this forum) but I didn't hit him.

Said Line Manager was sacked a few years after all this . Yours Truly stuck it out until retirement . Maybe that signifies something....

[Cyril Haearn]

Dilbert was talking to the personnel manager...
*I like to con people, and I like to insult them*
*Con-sultant* said the pm, *sounds expensive and useless, you're hired! *

[661-Pete]

For those who fancy amusing themselves with a novel based on all this stuff, may I recommend Force of Nature by Jane Harper? It's a sequel to her best-seller The Dry, but you don't have to have read that first.

[Cunobelin]

I remember attending something similar for recruitment.

Everyone went for the ones that had pushed forward and been prominent. I noted a quieter one who had not "shined" in that way, but had just got on with it, had been the one that had helped others and ensured everyone was included.

Whilst everyone else argued over the "better" candidates, I got the one I wanted straight away, and never regretted it

[Cyril Haearn]

The cops do this too, they tried to build a relationship with problem teenagers by playing paintball together

That is, they pretended to shoot and kill each other

A bit different. Playing games with young people to build up good relations with the community is surely part of what we expect the police to do.

Yes but pretending to shoot each other dead? Do they do that in trumpland? Must the weapons look like toys?
..
I experienced, or fortunately only observed, a team-building yesterday
A DrumCircle, one sits with colleagues, friends, neighbours* and makes a noise to wake the dead, maybe that is the idea, so talking, communication is impossible

Glad everyone on here agrees with me I guess, but I do like argument, controversy, learning, has anyone had positive experiences?

*a perfect way to alienate neighbours not joining in, who are sick in bed or trying to sleep after a night shift

[millimole]

I experienced several shades of "team building" exercises during my years attempting to climb the greasy pole of NHS management.
Without exception they were toxic, disturbing and unhelpful.
I saw grown men reduced to tears; experienced female managers fighting like cats, and friendships of years reduced to nothing.
Team building exercises are an expensive con-trick played on gullible, but well-meaning managers by money-grabbing charlatans.

<Say what you mean, Mike>

I'm a trendy consumer. Just look at my wobbly using hovercraft full of eels.

[Cyril Haearn]

Team building with friends, even surprises, can be great
One birthday a chum collected me, whisked me off to Blaenau Ffestiniog for an underground experience, +1
Another time I took my lady friend from the Home Counties on a mystery train trip - to the Bowes Museum at Barnard Castle, a short bus ride from Darlington highspeedstation