That's all I could think about this weekend. I happened to attend a team building event in Nanyuki and lo and behold, didn't I learn a lot. Not the kind of studies you do in colleges but some other weird ones. Let me give you an example.
Our team building facilitator decided that it was time for all of us to carry an egg on a spoon. We were set up in teams of 7 and told run with the egg on the spoon before handing it over to a member of our team. That's all very nice. But exactly what is that meant to achieve?
You can learn more about these team building facilitators here.
So I can carry an egg with a spoon and the other teams can't. Exactly how does that keep me motivated at work?
This egg carrying thing came a few hours after we were made to sit down and listen to our CEO babble about corporate goals, social responsibility and why we should never come late for work. Coming late for work has something to do with bad customer experience.
That's all good, but if they really wanted us to be on time to work, why don't they just hire a vehicle for all of us? I'm sure none of us would ever come late to work. But you are telling me who lives in Embakasi to come early to work on a team building day and forgeting that you are driven to work every morning.
I guess its obvious that I think that team building activities in Kenya are plainly bogus.
On another so called team building drill, we were to jump in a sack and race. Surely.....Oh surely.
But there was one aspect of these team building hotels in Kenya that I really loved. The night time. Heck the booze was free. So there is where the real team building actually happened. Free beer can really make you relaxed and relax we did. Some of us maybe too much.
But the team building facilitators didn't care. They had made a killing over the weekend. The HR manager didn't care, she had something new to add to her quarterly report. We sure didn't care, we were drunk as hell.
So though I think my bosses lost some money, I will support team building in Kenya to the core.
