Playing soldiers ....
I never enjoyed those team building training courses in commerce that involved building rafts or walking around blind folded in a group trying to engender trust. They just never seemed to work, and anyway most people were hung over on those courses anyway. Always seemed to me that if you want to build team work then you need to get people to be decent to each other and all be wanting the same thing....Difficult to achieve when everyone's in it for what they can get out of it.
So it was interesting to be sent on a course which involved all those kinds of things ...But where team work was not the reason for it. I will have cause to go to risky areas in my work here - so shortly I am hoping to go to the Philippines to see the work there, and come back with stories and case studies to get the message out in an inspiring way to the support base. So I went last week on our security training course....
The content was lots of first aid mainly trauma based - if you get a broken bone or a gun shot wound or shracknell from a bomb blast I'm your man in theory!! And also lots of risk assessment; what to do in a check point, what to do if kidnapped, how to escape in cross fire etc. All fascinating stuff and hopefully never needed! Also all presented by ex marines - who were really good at it and great fun but you couldn't help thinking "how many guys have you killed"??....
Why mention teamwork? Because those of us going through this together, even when the guns weren't loaded and we knew the kidnapping was not for real, were in it together, and we really did feel like a team. So when we were blindfolded and captive we were more than conscious of the effect our actions could have on the rest of the group for example. (Wondering the grounds in the evening reminiscing about the Famous 5 adventures may not be the aim of most team building exercises but there you go ...)
Back to the playing catch up analogy...Teamwork is so important, and sometimes good teamwork seems like it's always around the next corner - but playing soldiers in the field last week was probably the best team building training you could encounter even if that was not its aim.
So it was interesting to be sent on a course which involved all those kinds of things ...But where team work was not the reason for it. I will have cause to go to risky areas in my work here - so shortly I am hoping to go to the Philippines to see the work there, and come back with stories and case studies to get the message out in an inspiring way to the support base. So I went last week on our security training course....
The content was lots of first aid mainly trauma based - if you get a broken bone or a gun shot wound or shracknell from a bomb blast I'm your man in theory!! And also lots of risk assessment; what to do in a check point, what to do if kidnapped, how to escape in cross fire etc. All fascinating stuff and hopefully never needed! Also all presented by ex marines - who were really good at it and great fun but you couldn't help thinking "how many guys have you killed"??....
Why mention teamwork? Because those of us going through this together, even when the guns weren't loaded and we knew the kidnapping was not for real, were in it together, and we really did feel like a team. So when we were blindfolded and captive we were more than conscious of the effect our actions could have on the rest of the group for example. (Wondering the grounds in the evening reminiscing about the Famous 5 adventures may not be the aim of most team building exercises but there you go ...)
Back to the playing catch up analogy...Teamwork is so important, and sometimes good teamwork seems like it's always around the next corner - but playing soldiers in the field last week was probably the best team building training you could encounter even if that was not its aim.
posted by Mark at 8:02 PM
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