CORPORATE BONDING
building teamplay
Scheduled Corporate Fun
Fun Day requires everyone in the department to participate in a group activity that helps them become friends.
Human Resources wants staff to have fun -- together.
Fun Day is not fun. If the company wanted you to have fun, they’d give you a day off and $200.
The Joy of Connecting
Fun Day often requires embarrassing attire. If your Fun Day is a group lesson at a cooking school, you will have to wear an apron and a chef’s hat. If you’re overweight, the ties of the one-size-fits-all apron may not fit around your waist.
HR thinks being embarrassed is a great way to break the ice with your fellow colleagues.
Best to hide in the lavatory during the group photo.
Many Wonderful Options
Sue’s boss asks Sue to think of activities for this year's Fun Day.
Sue's online research generates a range of possibilities – carnival rides, team raft building, bungee jumping, competitive dog grooming, axe throwing and survival training.
Sue dismisses all of these. She refuses to risk injury or death to entertain HR. And giving axes to subordinates? Not so smart.
Adventure
Then Sue hits on the perfect idea – a cruise around New York harbor.
Fun Day would be sitting in a deck chair and viewing the scenery with a Margarita in hand. No skill or physical exertion required.
It is the only cruise that the boss’s budget can afford.
Encouraging Togetherness
The department meets at the pier at 8am.
The main deck does have a bar, but serves only beer and soft drinks.
The boss’s secretary hands out little sailor hats.
Sue looks ridiculous in hers. At the first opporunity she throws it in the trash in the ladies room.
Rising to the Challenge
The highlight of the cruise is supposed to be a closeup of the Statue of Liberty.
Unhappily, the captain can’t get close to Liberty Island because the sanitation department’s garbage scow is in the way.
When the boat returns to the pier, there is a stampede to the gangplank. Will her Fun Day choice be mentioned in Sue’s appraisal?
corporate cITIZENSHIP
Our Shareholders Care
Giving back to the community is a corporate priority -- even when times are tough. The Board of Directors demonstrates its commitment by enabling all staff to participate in Volunteer Day. Volunteering fulfills the company's commitment to compassion.
Volunteer Day also enables staff to bond. They sacrifice personal time in order to work together in alien environments.
We Take On the Challenges One by One
This year, Volunteer Day is scheduled for a Friday instead of the weekend. This doesn’t mean that Bob Davenport, VP, gets a day off from work though; he just has to make up for lost time by working at home on Sunday instead.
The departmental opportunities for compassion
are designed to more than make up for the sacrifice:
No Challenge is Too Great
Bob seeks the least awful option for sacrifice.
He's had a lot of discomfort in his lower back for the past several months since moving his mother to a nursing home. This precludes physical activities like painting, picking up litter and stocking shelves. Bob fell off a pony when he was six, and has refused to go near horses thereafter.
By the process of elimination, that leaves props and costumes for kindergarten.
No Place is Too Far
Bob and a dozen employees he doesn’t know assemble in a playground near a pre-school in the Bronx. Human Resources made sure that each group was composed of employees who didn’t work together, so no one could relax among familiar faces.
Volunteer bonding is meant to be hard work.
Creating Opportunity
The principal leads volunteers into the school lunchroom where they sit on little blankets on the floor. Bob’s back starts to hurt.
Bob’s team is told to make tutus for the three-year old girls in the upcoming school pageant. They are given strips of gauze, gold spray paint, and Elmers Glue. They are asked to use their imaginations.
After 30 years in business, Bob is curious to know what they mean.
Making an Impact
Nobody knows what to do. Finally, someone suggests that a large strip of gauze can be made into a belt. Then they can crumple other gauze into vertical strips and staple them to the belt. Then they can spray paint it all in gold. The little tots would have the tutus they needed to become ballerinas.
The tutus come out looking like hula skirts in a drought. The Principal is so pleased with the effort and the compassion.
After five hours sitting cross-legged on the floor, Bob can hadly stand up. Before the next annual volunteer activity, Bob vows to overcome his fear of horses. Unfortunately, two months later, his whole division is sold and everyone is fired.
HOW WE DRIVE SUCCESS
CEO Addresses the Management Assembly
"Corporate value is Corporate Culture!Corporate Culture is about what we are about!From now on, we are about one thing: CAN-DO! That's the key word for the future. Can-Do means corporate-wide participatory consensus. Can-Do means hands-on face-to-face bias for action.Can-Do means execution. This quarter we execute the Five C's of Can-do!We optimize Coordination. Working Hard.We Communicate. Talking. Cross-acting. Trans-acting.We Cooperate. Meeting. Agreeing. Liaising.We Commit. Personally. Corporately. Team! That's Critical Mass. I know every one of you. I fully expect that you will enthusiastically embrace this challenge."
Mobilization Announcement
The CEO follows the Management Assembly with a personal GET-WITH -THE-PROGRAM email invitation. It is sent to each Corporate Manager.
Retreat Location
The best corporate bonding happens offsite, where you don't have your office or desk for protection.
It typically happens in natural surroundings.
Corporate Treasury doesn't want to pay too much (Tahoe or Acadia). And HR doesn't want people wandering off to pretty lakes, mountains or caves by themselves.
Management Drills
Table of Contents for the Can-Do Seminar Package.
Each Module comes with 3 pages of questions. Each question has to be answered and submitted electronically.
The Bias-For-Action-CAN-DO Executive Module at the end is short:
"CAN-DO MEANS EARNINGS GO UP 25% THIS QUARTER. NO-CAN-DO’S WILL NOT BE TOLERATED."
This Module has no questions.
Management Discipline
The company needs everyone to get with the 25% increase in earnings next quarter.
The Seminar lasts for three days 16 hours per day. So everyone can get to know everyone really well.
Ditto HR. HR can get to know the team members who aren't getting with the earnings boost next quarter.
Building The Management Team
Corporate Bonding is the foundation of team-building. HR needs to establish trust. Everyone has to let down their hair and be natural. If you are based in New York, this chart shows what you can to let down your hair. If you are based in Silicon Valley you don't need a chart.