CORPORATE BONDING
Our Shareholders Care
Giving back to the community is a corporate priority.
The Board of Directors demonstrates its commitment by enabling all staff to participate in Volunteer Day.
Volunteering fulfills the company's commitment to compassion.
Also: Human Resources (HR) wants Volunteer Day to help employees to bond.
On theYour Chosen Option Can be Truly Impactful
No Challenge is Too Great
Anything involving physical exertion involves risk.
Anything requiring precision involves risk.
The only safe choice: props and costumes for kindergarten.
No Place is Too Far
Company Volunteers assemble at a playground in the Bronx.
HR makes sure that each group is composed of employees who don’t work together.
Volunteer bonding is meant to be hard work.
Creating Opportunity
The principal leads the volunteers into the school cafeteria where they sit on little blankets on the floor.
The volunteers are to make tutus for the three-year old girls in the Christmas pageant.
They are given strips of gauze, gold spray paint, and Elmers Glue. They are asked to use their imaginations.
Making an Impact
Nobody knows what to do.
They decide to make a large strip of gauze into a belt, spray smaller strips of gauze with gold paint and staple everything together.
The tutus look like hula skirts in a drought.
The Principal is very pleased with the corporate compassion.
Two months later, the company cuts 20% of the workforce, and a half the dressmakers get the axe.
Scheduled Corporate Fun
Fun Day requires everyone in the department to participate in a group activity that helps them become friends.
HR wants employees to have fun -- together.
Many Wonderful Interactions
There is a range of possibilities for getting corporate colleagues together to let their hair down:
Carnival rides, team raft building, bungee jumping, competitive dog grooming, axe throwing, building human pyramids and survival training.
Adventure
A cruise around New York harbor is a typical idea.
Sitting on a metal deck bench and viewing the scenery with hot chocolate in hand can help the team relax and be open. No skill or physical exertion required.
And it's not going to bust the budget.
Encouraging Togetherness
The department meets at the pier at 11am.
The main deck has a bar, but serves only bottled water and Pepsi.
The boss’s secretary hands out little sailor hats.
These are quickly disposed of into the garbage cans.
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Rising to the Challenge
The highlight of the cruise is supposed to be the Statue of Liberty.
Unhappily, the captain can’t get close to Liberty Island because a Port Authority sanitation barge is in the way.
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 email invitation to CAN-DO. It is sent to each Corporate Manager.
Retreat Location
Corporate bonding happens offsite, often with natural surroundings.
NOT in Acadia, Park City or Tahoe.
More like the Pine Barrens County Fairgrounds.
HR doesn't want people wandering off to lakes, mountains or caves by themselves.
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 gets to know everyone really well.
Ditto HR. HR gets to know everyone really well too. Particularly the team members who aren't getting with the program.
Management Drills
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
Building The Management Team
HR needs to establish trust.
Corporate Bonding is the foundation of team-building.
Everyone has to let down their hair and be natural.
If you are based in New York, this chart shows what you can do to let down your hair.
If you are based in Silicon Valley you don't need a chart.
