The training I was on was a 3 part series: Cultural competency, conflict management, and team building.
I liked the team building class much more than the other two where it felt like a group therapy session. The activity for team building was to create a tower that was 4ft tall with misc limited items that were given to us. I think there were 7 construction paper, a paper towel tube, 1 poster paper, some paper clips, 5 tennis balls and some other smaller items. After construction the tower must withstand 5 waves of a paper fan.
The group was separated into 8 groups. The instructor was the 'Boss' or 'Authority' whatever he said we had to do. We had 30 min to organize, plan, and build. The first 5 mintues was us organizing the team but we could not speak. Anyone who spoke, were to be silenced for the rest of the time or when told by the Boss that he/she could speak again. So we followed direction; we spread out our materials out to see what we have. We did weird signs with our hands what the structure will look. 5 minutes went and I started talking. I began to tell some dude to start cutting up the tennis balls making one side flat. BAM the instructor said, " MK SHUTTUP, you're out."
Dude. I was so confused, I asked why? And he ignored me so, I just chilled out wondering what I did wrong. 10 min pass, my team still got something looking like a rocket that won't stand upright. I couldn't deal with it so I went in and started helping out. We needed 3 legs and it could be achieved with the tennis balls, using pipe strings to achieve height but we have to put all the sturdier stuff at the bottom. BOOM we got something. But we were off by a foot. I told some guy to find us another and trade them something of ours that we don't need. So he went off, got a few materials.
Then the rest of the other teams started working together. My team was discussing how the tower will stand but it won't survive the fan. So we got together with the other teams, shared resources and made 3 towers made up of our combined resources.
After that, the instructor was so surprised. He said that the activity was designed so that none of the teams would be able to make a passable tower. The point was the communication b/w the teams. We were the first class who had done what the activity had intended to do AND actually finish the objective. He also didn't think the teams would start trading/combining resources.
It was a very interesting activity especially since, something new occurred in his training. What caught my interest also, is when he told all those that he told to shut up in the beginning was on purpose. He was trying to illustrate that authority should not dictate what you have to do to finish the job. He emphasized that although rules and orders were good, sometimes the results and doing the job trumps that it. He silenced all of the individuals he felt were the leaders of the group and was disappointed that most followed direction. Learned something from that one, but happy that I didn't remain quite for the rest of the activity. LOL