Why do people look forward to team offsites ? If you run a survey, then the most common answer would be that it would give them a definite break from work.
Why do people not like offsites ? Again survey results might tell you that people are given too much of unnecessary gyaan about team building which won't be anyways implemented after that. Typical team offsites have lot of silly games and then they overshoot gyaan about those games .
My team went for an offsite this time and the best part about it was it was outbound . The gyaan was definitely there but the way it was projected was much better since most of the games we played involved a lot of brain work, coming up with interesting strategies and helluva lot of team work!
OKAY - where on earth did we go ? We went to this place called Galibore Fishing and Nature camp - around 100 km from Bangalore . Listen to this - there was no Electricity apart from the bare minimum fan at night ( rest of it was all lanterns or torches) , No mobile phones worked there , No laptops , No internet , No work related stuff for 2 complete days, birds chirping away to glory, Cauvery river at the backdrop with huge mountains and hills all over with plenty of lovely huge trees along with amazing amount of fun and ofcourse, we got to know each other much better because of these games.
So what did we do ? We went trekking at 7am in the morning for 2 hours which was simply fantastic. We even played "lagori" or "pittoo" . We played a game based on huge drums and another game involving marbles and ofcourse partied(sang, danced,drank ofcourse!) in the evening even with heavy rains lashing out for a long period of time.
The best part however was Rappling. Since most of the team were doing it for the first time, the initial 2 feet of the 45 feet cliff (Its not too much , typically its a minimum of 100 feet or definitely more than that) was really scary especially at the point you just let go of yourself from the cliff . Its a moment where you feel your entire body and mind has completely left you and you have goosebumps(literally). However, as soon as you start going down , the feeling is totally different . Exhilaration, Sense of achievement, Adrenalin rush etc are just some of the things you can say to describe this! We had this ex-air force guy who was our guide and I distinctly remember him saying - "Keep your feet apart","Dont bend your knees" , "Arrey yaar, nothing will happen, its just a couple of feet","Go down now, haha , see its so simple, pls give a nice smile . Yaar ,uski photo tho lo" . Every single person did it in the team and it was just an awesome feeling. I will post the links once all the pics are posted.
Irrespective of what I do in future, this trip was so far the best I had been to( till maybe the next one comes around ;)) and even the gyaan sounded much better than before ;).
4 comments:
The rappelling part sounds great yaar ! I SHOULD try it sometime..
Offiste is the way they have to tell that they care.
If you see offsite stuff from managers point of view, you will quickly realise, they have to do it as part of thier KPI.
If they dont do it, they are assesed negatively.
Its DEFINETLY not for giving emp a break. Trust me, In my previous orgs, we NEVER had offisites, and we never complained.
Its more of AMERICAN culture, try asking ur frnds in Wipro/Infy/TCS and they will say they never craved for offiste.
Finally, Offsite, is also managers way of pushing his PPT crap onto u.
They just cant live without doing tht.
I have attended some offsites, NEVER have i have seen any offsite, where mgr dont do PPT crap.
Its O.K for them to shove some 2-3 hrs PPT while u are absolutely NOT in the mood.
Tell me more abt giving an EMP a break.
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Nice Article! Do you want to improve your team's performance? Offsite Team Building can help you to foster collaboration and team spirit in employee engagement. These team building help in increasing communication and coordination between team members.
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