Teambuilding - Jack Bauer style

A contribution from guest writer Di Stirling-Chow, Greenslade Business Consultants

For any one who has always had a secret desire to be James Bond, or more lately Jack Bauer, Greenslade Business Consultants Ltd’s spooks-based teambuilding event fits the bill exactly!

A number of journalists went to check out this radical new slant on building and skilling up teams as well as looking at ways to make teambuilding fun again. Andrew Greenslade, former CID and Special Branch officer and Sky TV’s resident UK police expert,  geared up the teams to get their covert radios and mikes fitted, to plan, to get into position and go ‘on plot’, to find their ‘subjects’ and to ‘standby, standby, standby’ then ‘go, go, go!’.

After leading the teams a merry dance through markets, round the high street, through most of the back alleys in the area, in and out of shops, on and off buses and through sites of historic interest, Greenslade said how quickly they had picked up the basics and how good it was to watch people increase in confidence as they followed subjects round the designated market town in Nottinghamshire. More importantly over the course of a day the teams had begun to work strongly together; something all employers need for their staff and the reason journalists had travelled up from London: to report on this new style of teambuilding that was fun as well as productive.

People watching

Subjects who were followed on the day were in on the plot from the start, knew they were being followed, although not by whom, and had as much fun as the participants. The shoplifting gang of young adults, some with children in buggies, whom Greenslade spotted early on, were convinced the police were running a real operation and so the shop owners of the town would have seen a reduction in thefts for the afternoon (not a bad outcome, albeit not an intended part of the day!).

Greenslade, interviewed afterwards, said “The activity works to increase vigilance and observational skills for everyone whose job involves a level of people watching – those who work in banks, journalists, local authority enforcement officers and the Police to name only a few, and is a great day for all those who work in a team or in partnership with other people. What is unique about this teambuilding is that we can tailor it for people with limited physical mobility or sensory impairments; offer it for frontline staff and senior managers and make it a fun event for private individuals (as a birthday or pre-wedding event it is a great laugh - without the alcohol, at least until the event is over!).”

A big success for a local government enforcement team

The approach seems to be working well – run recently for the enforcement team of one of the London Boroughs, the senior manager in attendance said:

“This event worked for us on a number of levels: firstly bringing new teams together when they are merging following restructure and are naturally nervous about change. Secondly the training was fun and gave people a chance to get to know each other under some pressure but in a friendly environment.

“What was also useful for us was that the increased knowledge about surveillance is crucial in our enforcement role – we have to be able to watch people closely – along with the ability to get along with people in difficult situations it’s probably the main skill we need our enforcement officers to have.”

One of the enforcement officers on the course said “It feels like we now have a shared history and we’ve only been together for a fortnight. We definitely need to do it next year – imagine how well we’ll work together by then!”

If your organisation are doing anything different around teambuilding and engaging their people, we’d love to hear about it.

Key links for more information about the event and the company that runs it are below:

www.greensladebusinessconsultants.com

http://www.info4security.com/