Earlier this month I attended Netrix‘s yearly kick off conference. Looking at the day’s agenda I noticed a team building exercise on the list. I had an immediate aversion to it and prepared for the worst. But when I learned that the exercise was going to be a catapult building challenge I was actually curious about this activity. However I was still somewhat skeptical about how fun and engaging it would actually be.
Each team was comprised of sales, techs, project managers, programmers, and creative talents. We are from different backgrounds and sections of our company. Many of us have never worked together or even met. Since we were unfamiliar with each other and our skill sets, it took some acclimating to figure out who would do what in the group. Once we had our roles figured out we began working on our catapult. While the engineers on our team worked on building the best catapult, I worked with the sales guys to design a presentation for the sales pitch portion of the project. Our project manager divided her time between the two groups.
As the first round got going, we could see the other team’s catapults hurling the balls clear across the room, we figured we would be out of the competition quickly. However there was another challenge in which we came out the victor. This challenge tested the catapult’s accuracy. Our catapult was the most accurate and easily beat the other catapults in this round. There was also a sales component to this challenge. In the sales round, my design aided the sales pitch which gained our team more points. In the final round we must have intimidated our competition because it took them two tries with no prevail to knock down a target whereas it only took our team one. Much to our surprise we won the challenge!
Again I had another opportunity to work in a team building environment at our practice group outing was this past Thursday. Instead our usual going out for drinks, we volunteered for a charity event that would also strengthen our team building skills. Again, at first I was skeptical of this event, but quickly realized the value of such events, both for our company and the larger population. The charity we volunteered for was the non-profit Feed My Starving Children. They provide nutritional meals for malnourished children around the world. At the event we formed an assembly line to fill bags with a rice mixture. Each person being a key component in completing the process. It was funny that we inadvertently took positions that mimicked to our technical skills at work. Programmers filled the bag with food an essential part of the product just like code. Front-end developers and designers made sure the bags and boxes were lined up nicely and packaged well. While project managers checked for quality control. The event ended up being a lot of fun and helped a good cause.
Through both of these exercises I learned the importance of reaching out to members of the company who I might not normally interact with, and in doing so get to know Netrix better as a whole. I also realized the enormous difference one person (or a couple) could have on a larger scale. Yes, Netrix mainly deals with technology services, but because of our position we’re able to help other people in and around our community and the world.
So next time there is a team building event, give it a try you might learn something or make a new friend!