Team Building in China

I initially thought that I wouldn’t write about work in my blog – I figure it’d be best to keep these observations to myself. However, this week I experienced something that I had to comment on.

Within Bobcat NA we often have team meetings and during these there is usually time allowed for team building activities. Common activities include golf, trap shooting and playing cards. As I managed a group in NA I often struggled with how to make quarterly staff meetings fun or at least prevent us from going crazy while being trapped in a conference room for five days straight. My favorite group activity in NA is either hitting the arcade or going bowling.

This week I attended a quarterly meeting for the Aftermarket group in China. I had been informed the meeting was only one day in length. Upon receiving the agenda I realized that it showed two days. So I asked the question – “What are we doing on the second day?” The answer “We are having some team building activities.”

I was told that we would be doing beach activities. A million questions came flooding into my mind….

What type of activities would we be doing at the beach?
I was hoping for a little beach volleyball
Would I be able to pass get away without swimming?
I really didn’t want to put on a swimsuit in front of my tiny Chinese colleagues
Would we spend all day outdoors?
If this was the plan I’d have to pack a case of water
How could this be considered a good group activity?
Body image issues aside, what if people didn’t like the beach, were sun sensitive or couldn’t swim….how could these activities appeal to the masses.

We arrived at the beach at 9:30am. The group was dressed in a wide range of clothing – from long pants with polo shirts, to dresses to shorts and flip-flops. We simply looked like an odd group. After paying to enter the beach we stepped through the turnstile and were accosted by people trying to sell us their wares – sun hats, life preservers, water toys, etc…

The group pushed through and made it to the waterfront. Once there we bargained with a vendor offer use of some tables and chairs. Or at least I think that’s what was going on – All I heard was a very heated (lengthy) discussion.

All of us settled in to the spot we had claimed. Immediately a portion of the guys surrounded a vendor – I couldn’t figure out what they were doing until someone from the group asked “Do you swim today?” I replied “No.” Then I put it together. They were buying one time use suits. I couldn’t take my eyes of the group of guys bartering over swimsuits. I have no idea what they paid for these suits – I can’t imagine much. Almost as soon as it started it was over and the group was headed over to change into their suits.

What a crazy concept, I mean heck in the US a girl will easily pay over $100 for a suit and I know brand name suits for guys can run over $50. Evidently the amount of inches a suit took off your waist, or the lengths of the trunks are not a concern over here.

While the some played in the water I watched a group of three play cards. I was trying to figure out the rules via observation. It reminded me of Gin. After awhile one of the managers came over and asked if I wanted to learn. So he coached me through like 10 hands. I only one once, but on the other hands I didn’t lose too badly – which is good as typically you count points in the game and the amount of points you have left equals the amount of money you have to hand over to the winner.

90 minutes later we left the beach. I had a surprisingly good time.

Use this link to access Team Activity pictures
http://picasaweb.google.com/esjohnson80/WorkMtg