Retreat and team-building. These are buzz words in the corporate world today. But I would never have thought that a Retreat is possible from the place where I work! It makes me realise how much my workplace has evolved! Yes, it has become more employee-friendly and people-oriented. I'm most glad.
When my boss told me to organise a retreat for my department, I must admit I was at a total lose. None of us have had a retreat before, at least not my department. A committee was thus formed but we soon discovered it was no easy task. We had plans to engage a professional psychologist from our office to assist in facilitating the retreat, the theme of which was on "Team-building". Unfortunately, the psychologist has tight schedule and in the end, the inexperienced foursome in the committee has no choice but to organise our very own. Left with our own devices, we met, planned and sourced for materials to make the retreat a reality.
And so it was that the past two days, my colleagues and I were holed up in a secluded colonial bungalow for the Retreat, engaging in games and activities to improve teamwork. The idea was to hold the retreat away from the office premises, out of the confine of the place where we work to make us forget about our "work", to let our hair down, engage in games and activities to promote team work, learn more about ourselves and fellow colleagues and hopefully, to work towards achieving a work team that's cohesive, dynamic and productive.
I know the concept sounds rather simplistic; and team-building is not something that could be achieved overnight. But having a retreat to improve team work is definitely a step in the right direction. What I like most of the retreat is that all of us had the chance to share our thoughts about work and the impressions we have of one another. It's most encouraging to see colleagues who hardly utter more than 10 words a day engaging in activities and suddenly becoming "animated".
We'd like to think that the retreat is a success, if not at least a memorable one. We're happy to receive little notes of appreciation from some of our colleagues telling us how much they'd enjoyed the retreat and the sharing. Surely, these are indications that the Retreat has been positively perceived :)
We have a long way to go in our team-building. But having a Retreat is definitely a good start. Kudos to the management - we heard the retreat will be an annual affair. Hurrah.
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Chris, I saw the photos in the link which you sent me a few days ago. I must say the captions are very well written - by you, I presume. I am not surprised at that as I have said before that you have the gift of the gab (not gap).
I also particularly liked the game in which the teams had to construct a table solely out of newspaper and masking tape which had to be strong enough to carry the full weight of a 1.5L mineral water bottle without collapsing.
Looks like you, as a member of the organising committee, had done a very good job which would ensure that you would be a reappointed year after year.
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