Monday, April 21, 2008

Oh! Pontoon!! - II

[Read Part 1 first before you continue]

Another round of teambuilding for the 2nd batch of Astro BOE team. I expected less fun this time, because many of them are from management level. The outcome was not that bad though. Two of the three teams I facilitated were very interesting. I ended up giving the same points as the teams I facilitated last week. The third one… sigh… read below. I failed them. LOL!

Teams in action

The first team was great. I can see that one of them is a manager, because he was instructing the team what to do from beginning to the end. And the action was considerably fast. One thing I liked them - they listened to the customer (me lar…). I told them the logic of having the strings bound tightly, and explained to them the physics of it, and they accepted it. Possibly because they knew I facilitated last week, so they might have assumed that I knew exactly how it works. Well, honestly, I dunno how it really works, but at least I was able to recognize flaws. Anyway, the raft was great. Though it could not fit 6 people, they ended having one person less. Also, since they ‘sucked’ in rowing the raft (we kept turning round and round till I felt dizzy), I helped them row the raft. Nevertheless, due to their determination, I’m glad to award them points close to ‘distinction’. Hahaha…

The first team that I facilitated - great team they were

The second team was equally good. Same also, one manager instructing the rest - he did participate in building the raft though. One shocking fact was, the whole team did NOT know how to swim! Hmm… a bit of complication here, but I was sure with the life jackets things would be easy, as long as they were not hydrophobic. Indeed they weren’t! Great. Everything went so well that we did not even notice SOS from our buoy attendant. The poor guy stayed in the middle of the sea, attacked by jellyfish, and we did not even notice it - we thought he was having fun lying on the water. So, we gracefully rowed our raft towards him, only to find him struggling and blowing the whistle. Quickly, I called for SOS, and the other facilitators who were still by the shore swam towards him and pulled him out of the sea. Anyway, we’re half way there, and I called for the pull of the safety line to get us back to shore. What an experience.

For the third round, the rule had to be changed so that the teams need not row out to the jellyfish-infested sea. Instead, the team had to get the raft to a spot just deep enough to be tested with 5 team members standing, to show that the raft was able to stay afloat for 10 seconds.

The third team arrived, and, gosh, they appeared to be a NATO (No-Action-Talk-Only) team! They spent too much time discussing how the design should be, and there was only one person tying the foundation with one string! Wallau! I reminded them of the time limit, and the response, "Don't worry, we have enough time". Right!! What a team with such ‘great’ teamwork spirit. While all other teams were ready to test their raft, they were still stuck with the foundation! And, as they began to tie the second strings, I could see that they could leverage the time by tying the third string (actually they should have done it earlier). Alas, they just stood there watching. At that time I really really beh tahan - I gave a harsh hint to them, as if I kicked a log to get it moved by an inch. Eventually, I failed them by offering them close-to-minimal points for 3 out of 4 categories. The 4th category - well - they were going to fail, so no point cracking my head to figure out what grading suited them best. Summary for this team: too many NATO cooks stall the broth!

Also, this was the only team that complained about how long the string was. Tell you what, given them shorter strings, they would still complain - too short it would be. C’mon, you are given same material as other teams, how could it be that they had to request something special compared to the other 35 teams? Were they really that uncompetitive?

Was I burnt again? Well, I was not that dumb to allow the sun hit me directly for 7 hours again. I was constantly putting on sun-block, once every hour, to prevent the burn. And, true enough, my face never hurt anymore, though there were still some scaling and peeling off of my skin. And thank God, it showered for a while, so the weather was not that stifling hot.

I also got myself a bottle of Aloe Vera gel (as aloe-vera as possible) to cool down my skin apart from healing it. :-)
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As I was driving away from Tropical Spice Garden, I saw this doggie. So cute!!!

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