Slightly scary but insightful team building session

The newspaper headline today about 350 Indian cricketers going under the hammer for the next round of IPL auction, reminded me of something I had done years ago.

A couple of years ago, I was doing a series of team building sessions for an organisation.

This was years before I went ahead with my strengths certification from Gallup.

To begin with, the participants were segregated into homogeneous groups based on their predominant style of behaviour as highlighted by a questionnaire that was administered to them. We segregated them into three groups of Thinkers, Doers and Relators.

They then went about playing a game which brought out the need for a diverse, mutually complementing set of team members.

In every batch then, I shared the story of how managers are selected in Semco, Brazil.

Later on, as the participants had to regroup into heterogeneous teams that had a proportionally diverse mix of Thinkers, Doers and Relators, I pulled out the managers and put them on a bidding process - a la IPL bidding process.

Many managers looked scared wondering if they would be left out and whether their team members would take that as the opportunity to get even.

It was almost like a live 360 degree appraisal of the managers in public.

It was a relief for them that none of them were left out.

The team members first prepared a list of the complementary strengths and talents they needed in their teams and managers and went about selecting and bidding for each one.

They had to explain why they were bidding for a particular manager.

And that required them to focus on what is good and right in what is present in their managers.

It went quite well. The team members bonded at a deeper level and performed at a higher level as the communication was clearer and intent based and not hierarchy based.

In essence it’s all about earning the right to lead and strengths-psychology based team building.