Many years ago, in another life, I found myself sitting in a room with about one hundred other people, waiting for our "team building" seminar to begin. This is the kind of event that's been parodied on television ever since, where a person falls backward, trusting the person behind to catch them. We didn't have that one. This seminar was conducted by a team created by the Saturn car manufacturers and I was there on behalf of an Oldsmobile dealership. That should give everyone an idea of the long lasting effects of team building seminars.
We spent the morning listening to various people talk and I don't remember most of it, except they were all very enthusiastic. As a general rule, I'm suspicious of enthusiastic people, because it's obvious they don't understand the situation. After a lunch which I don't remember either, we began our team building exercise. We were divided into teams of ten and given a mission. Our seminar moderator tells us the lid of container of radioactive material has come loose and we must seal the container before the radiation kills everyone. Seems simple enough.
Our container was a coffee can holding a handful of marbles. A rope made an eight foot diameter circle and the radioactive marble container was in the center. Our tool kit contained six dog leashes, a short bungee cord and a red bandanna for each of us. One of our team members was a sales manager, so he immediately took charge. The solution was straight forward. The dog leashes are hooked to the bungee cord and six team members maneuver it over the coffee can, capture the can and carry it outside the rope circle.Our sales manager assembled his squad, handing a leash to anyone who held out their hand. At this point I had been an auto mechanic for twenty years, with a few years of middle management smeared on top. I knew that straight forward solutions are usually bent and reversed, so I stood back. This was a one day seminar, so I knew there would be no point to an exercise this easy.
As soon as the bungee cord and leashes crossed the rope boundary, our moderator announced that everyone hold a leash was now blinded by the radiation. We took the red bandannas and blindfolded the leash holders. Sales manager was not at a loss of useful ideas. He ordered everyone to count off, and he started by saying "One". Three other people said "Two", at the same time. We had a leader who could not make a good decision because he had no idea what his team was doing. This was a situation I had endured most of my working life.
I stepped up and issued a series of short orders. First, everybody stand still hand hold the leash to the center of your chest. Second, each person(all men, of course) called out his name. I then directed each man by name to step back or to the side until each was at an even point on the circle. Now I ordered each man to keep the leash taut and drop to one knee. This is where I fucked up. It was working so well, I got enthusiastic. Instead of issuing an order by name, as I had before, I touched the man closest me on the shoulder. Of course, now I was blind as well. I turned to the person standing next to me and said, "You're in charge now." He had seen enough to understand the command system I created and we were able to move the can out of the circle and cap it. Unfortunately, at that moment the team on the other side of the room dropped their can and scattered radioactive marbles, killing everyone at the seminar.
It was really a quite clever scenario. It was not so much about team work, but the need for redundancy in management. We needed three managers to finish this job. The more dire the situation, and the closer the manager is to the crisis, the more critical redundancy becomes.
This is the condition we face today. We have teams all over the nation who are dealing with this crisis. At any moment, anyone of them could be pulled out of line and someone else has to step into their place. This is not a critical failure point, its a failure fault line. This morning it was announced that forty New Orleans fire fighters have tested positive for Covid19 virus. It could just as easily be forty doctors, nurses, or paramedics. This is the real problem we face and if this disaster transgresses into catastrophe, it will be because the people responsible for dealing with the problem are taken down by it.
We spent the morning listening to various people talk and I don't remember most of it, except they were all very enthusiastic. As a general rule, I'm suspicious of enthusiastic people, because it's obvious they don't understand the situation. After a lunch which I don't remember either, we began our team building exercise. We were divided into teams of ten and given a mission. Our seminar moderator tells us the lid of container of radioactive material has come loose and we must seal the container before the radiation kills everyone. Seems simple enough.
Our container was a coffee can holding a handful of marbles. A rope made an eight foot diameter circle and the radioactive marble container was in the center. Our tool kit contained six dog leashes, a short bungee cord and a red bandanna for each of us. One of our team members was a sales manager, so he immediately took charge. The solution was straight forward. The dog leashes are hooked to the bungee cord and six team members maneuver it over the coffee can, capture the can and carry it outside the rope circle.Our sales manager assembled his squad, handing a leash to anyone who held out their hand. At this point I had been an auto mechanic for twenty years, with a few years of middle management smeared on top. I knew that straight forward solutions are usually bent and reversed, so I stood back. This was a one day seminar, so I knew there would be no point to an exercise this easy.
As soon as the bungee cord and leashes crossed the rope boundary, our moderator announced that everyone hold a leash was now blinded by the radiation. We took the red bandannas and blindfolded the leash holders. Sales manager was not at a loss of useful ideas. He ordered everyone to count off, and he started by saying "One". Three other people said "Two", at the same time. We had a leader who could not make a good decision because he had no idea what his team was doing. This was a situation I had endured most of my working life.
I stepped up and issued a series of short orders. First, everybody stand still hand hold the leash to the center of your chest. Second, each person(all men, of course) called out his name. I then directed each man by name to step back or to the side until each was at an even point on the circle. Now I ordered each man to keep the leash taut and drop to one knee. This is where I fucked up. It was working so well, I got enthusiastic. Instead of issuing an order by name, as I had before, I touched the man closest me on the shoulder. Of course, now I was blind as well. I turned to the person standing next to me and said, "You're in charge now." He had seen enough to understand the command system I created and we were able to move the can out of the circle and cap it. Unfortunately, at that moment the team on the other side of the room dropped their can and scattered radioactive marbles, killing everyone at the seminar.
It was really a quite clever scenario. It was not so much about team work, but the need for redundancy in management. We needed three managers to finish this job. The more dire the situation, and the closer the manager is to the crisis, the more critical redundancy becomes.
This is the condition we face today. We have teams all over the nation who are dealing with this crisis. At any moment, anyone of them could be pulled out of line and someone else has to step into their place. This is not a critical failure point, its a failure fault line. This morning it was announced that forty New Orleans fire fighters have tested positive for Covid19 virus. It could just as easily be forty doctors, nurses, or paramedics. This is the real problem we face and if this disaster transgresses into catastrophe, it will be because the people responsible for dealing with the problem are taken down by it.
