johnmdemarco posted on January 26, 2012 08:21
Yesterday was fun. I helped facilitate a strategic planning offsite with one of my leadership teams, on a docked “ship” located along the Tennessee River. It was a different, energizing atmosphere for both brainstorming and team-building. We got a lot done, and we laughed a lot as well.
It’s amusing, the topics that come up during “down time” at these kinds of events. A group of eight or so of us were sitting around a table during a lull in the action, while a couple of other groups were across the room finishing up a project. Somehow we arrived at the topic of middle names, and had fun guessing—and, then making fun of—each person’s given middle name. Then, the senior leader in the group started inquiring about who had a tattoo, what they were specifically, how many they had, etc. He then asked each of us about the coolest job titles we ever wore, and later in the evening we started making fun of Southern colloquialisms. Silly stuff….
...yet meaningful, when it comes to community. Work teams spend so much of their time stressing together, striving to achieve goals together, meeting together…but very little time truly appreciating the uniqueness of one another. Sometimes it’s quite valuable to get away from the normal work context, and allow for unstructured time when the only agenda is seeing where the conversation takes you…