Back when I was a Learning and Development Business Partner, I met with a manager from one of my client areas to discuss the training plans for his team. Beaming me a big smile, he opened with, “I want to take them to a cook school!”
“Right,” I said beaming right back at him ‘“Tell me about that.”
As he spoke, he waved his hands around in an, ‘imagine if you will’ type pitch. “It’s a way up in the North of Scotland; it’s a full day and night so bear that in mind because we’ll be needing travel, accommodation, this that and the other. Better if we booked the accommodation on-site eh!”
He continued, “The chefs at the school carry out talks throughout the day on the different cooking techniques, etc. And they tell you all about the ingredients, sourcing and the like, and they do a demonstration for you on how to cook a particular thing.”
Frank was a little eccentric but, I truly like him. He was well known for being a human ‘good food’ app and could recommend a restaurant in any part of Scotland you might find yourself in. This type of event would be sure to appeal to him.
“You then go to your individual workstations and have a go at doing it yourself. You do get help though, from the cooking team assistants if you need it” he said.
“Little nibbles are made and eaten throughout the day, and you get wine to accompany them, but the grand finale’s the thing. It’s a meal that you have prepared which they finished off and then serve to you that night for dinner” he smiled. “You also get an apron with the cook school’s name on it but listen to this, for just £20 more; they will put your team’s name on it instead!”
You’ve got to hand it to him I thought, the boy did his research. Also, it sounded a far nicer prospect than the latest trend of dragging everyone off to a draughty old Castle or Baronial Hall (haunted or otherwise) to talk- at- everybody for two days: “Ok” I said, “what’s it in aid of?”
“Eh, Team Building,” he said in a tone that implied he thought I had asked a stupid question.
“Team Building, right.” I said knitting my brow, “what’s going on with the team then?”
“There’s nothing going on with the team, they have been working hard that’s all, and I think they need a little treat” and with those words, my happiness and joy sunk like a stone. It’s at these times that I always think of the plight of the juror when the judge says “the jury will disregard the last statement.”
“Are there any business objectives that you will be focussing on, any sessions planned?” I asked, trying to encourage him to rethink the parameters a little.
“No just the day’s activities.” He said, more subdued, his hopefulness waning. “Come on!” he said in a, ‘you can do this’ voice, “it will be great, Kathleen’s sister went with her work, and they had a blast.”
Once again, cast into the role of ‘killjoy’, ‘nae-sayer’ and all round bad guy, I had to explain that we could not spend any training budget on this particular event. I explained this was because there was no linkable benefit to the team, either at a resilience level or otherwise and there was nothing for the business at any level. (never mind explaining at the next budget meeting, why I raised a PO for two hundred and forty quid’s worth of aprons.)
Today a lot of what I do involves designing and delivering team away days. As a Brain Friendly facilitator, I look to deliver interactive sessions that engage teams with what we hope to achieve from the ‘get go’ literally at the earliest opportunity. I do it through the use of informative emails, web links, videos and the week before a carefully crafted Welcome Pack. I do this because if something is framed properly, is well-structured and feels like a good use of time, then, social event or not; most people will think this is a worthwhile endeavour. Believe it or not, your people, especially the busy ones, don’t want to do stuff for just the sake of it. When deliverables are pressing and time is tight, if you want their buy-in and some of their precious time, then communicating the benefit of what you want to do and what you hope to achieve by it, is the single most useful thing you can do. If your argument doesn’t stack up at this stage, as you formulate your message, well there’s your first ‘check and balance’ on the rationale of your thinking, right there!
Now you might be thinking that I just don’t see any merit in this kind of activity, but that’s not the case. I see merit in doing the most diverse of things. I have seen Leaders train with horses in natural horsemanship and in doing so find the right level of gravitas for them when communicating. Developing a new bearing, that included bringing their words, body, and soul in alignment to convey their messages.
So for example, if Frank had said; – The team have all been working closely together up until now, but it’s time for them to begin embedding into their client areas. They will need to continue to work in a consistent way but instead of just looking for support from each other; they will also need to look to their client areas as well. At the Cook School, they will still all have an identical task to do, but they will need to do the actual work in isolation. If they need help, they can’t as readily turn to each other so will instead have to rely on the cook school staff to guide and assist them, trusting in their expertise. When we debriefed at the end of the day, we can draw comparators between them having to rely on the assistance of the cooking support staff, and how going forward, they can also rely on their client areas to provide support/subject matter expertise too.
With this rationale, he would have procured the training no problem. It would have been about knowing what he wanted to achieve and then partnering him up with a capable outfit Who could help him meet his objectives in the mot creative and engaging way possible. He still wouldn’t have got the aprons though.
I create events all the time for companies, some of them on the surface appear more social than informative or instructional, and throughout the years I’ve heard all the opinions you could wish to hear on the subject, so here’s what I think!
Building a team’s resilience and capability is the single most useful thing that you can do for them, and for your business. Events should be on a frequency that matches how bent out of shape the department is and should be planned in such a way that not every objective met at the event was blindingly obvious or hammered home. If you can identify the right event for your needs, and have the manpower to coordinate and organise it, great! That saves money! You should, however, still seek out an awesome Facilitator, someone who can do clever things to support and bolster the team; before, during and after the event. Find someone who can subtly weave objectives and desired outcomes like threads through a tapestry and who won’t terrify or worst still patronise your people.
Lastly, high energy and stimulating events do set social evenings off with energy, and with a shared experience to talk about, this is what cements relationships. Like meeting and old friend and saying, “do you remember the time when?” But unlike friends, just taking a group of people out together and getting them drunk does not solve issues, in fact, I’ve seen it create bigger ones, leaving the HR department to deal with the fallout.
lexfarndell.com 