DIY Friday: The Big Book of Team Building Games by John Newstrom and Edward Scannell

I am excite.

Once again at the ghetto library near my house, I was desperately looking for a DIY-type book to review because it’s hotter than Hell in August in Columbus, Ohio, and I didn’t feel like getting into my friend’s un-air-conditioned Ford Tempo for any longer than it took to go around the block. After rejecting a whole bunch of lame DIY books that weren’t quite lame enough to be hilarious, I stumbled upon The Big Book of Team Building Games.  And I thought, “A-HA!”

Allow me to preface this review by saying that I am completely against the idea of team-building games.  If I must work as a team, I prefer to spend my time finding viable, adult ways to learn to work as a team–if not while working on an actual project where we might actually accomplish something, then at least by playing a game that involves shots and possibly nudity.  This book makes a lot of promises, though:

Each of these games is fast, creative, easy-to-lead, and will help you accomplish your team building goals.  Learn valuable tips on how to present games and how to select activities for particular situations.  Get essential advice on what not to do when leading games, and much more!

I cannot even imagine what more the book could do than that!

In a way, I’m the perfect person to review this book, because I’m the one person in the “team” who is always going to react badly–spectacularly badly, more than likely.  My team will be lucky if I can contain my loathing to eye-rolls and snide remarks; it’s not impossible that I might start chucking office supplies at the team “leader” if the game is inane enough.  If this book can win me over?  It’s a fucking winner.

Right away, in the introduction, I have an issue.  The authors describe the stages of being a team–they refer to them as “classic” stages–and the stages have been called thus:  ”Forming,” “Storming,” “Norming,” “Performing,” and “Adjourning.” Never mind the false rhyme at the end, even if those are somehow officially-recognized stages of team evolution, no self-respecting person should ever include them in print with those dippy rhyming names.

See, the problem that I have with team-building games is that they perpetuate the tendency of human beings to interact as though they are children.  This book reinforces this by suggesting team games that are meant to reveal some “greater truth” that any reasonable fucking adult should know.  Under “How to Use This Book,” the authors recall a “classic” exercise known as the “dollar exchange/idea exchange” exercise:

“Ask for the loan of a dollar from a member of the team.  Display it prominently in one hand [Just in case they forget in the 20 seconds it takes you to do the next step!!-GGG], and proceed to ask for the loan of a second dollar from another person.  Then carefully [again, because these people have the intelligence of monkeys!] repay the first loaner with the second dollar and repay the second loaner with the first dollar.  Now ask the rhetorical question, ‘Is either of these persons now richer than they were before?’ (Neither, of course, is.) Then point out to the team that, by contrast, had two ideas been shared as readily, not only the respective givers, but all team members would be richer in experience.”

Holy-fucking-mind-blow, Batman!  Where do I even start with what is wrong with this classic exercise?  For one thing, the dollar shtick doesn’t even begin to remotely demonstrate the point of the exercise.  What the dollar portion demonstrates is if you give your boss a buck, he’s going to give you someone else’s germ-riddled dollar back, and you have gained absolutely nothing, despite doing a total solid when your boss needed to borrow some cash.  He couldn’t even cough up a dime for 10% interest on your loan.  Moreover, he did the exact same damn thing to your coworker, so it’s not just you–sharing will get you nowhere in the dollar scenario.  You don’t lose, but you sure as hell don’t win.

As for the “ideas enrich the group” premise–who says? What if it’s a really terrible idea?  What if it’s the idea that brings your company to a grinding halt and you end up bankrupt on your couch living off of generic Cheetos in six months?  Who’s rich then?

The book also gives some “tips” on how to use team building games.  One of the tips is to pretest the game, so you can avoid wasting your team’s time just in case the game goes awry.  Apparently, though, it’s more than okay to waste your time, in addition to the time of close colleagues, friends, or family members on whom you’re supposed to “pretest” the game.  Better to spend hours figuring out if the game works than to waste fifteen or twenty minutes of team time and HEY aren’t YOU guys supposed to have already tested these games anyway??? Isn’t that the whole point of buying a book full of team-building games?

A tip I can really get behind, though:  ”Don’t use games just to entertain.”  It’s probably the first tip in this book that treats the team members like functioning society members instead of chimpanzees.  If you re-word the tip from business-bullshitese, it basically says, “Don’t waste my fucking time on a pointless game; I’m here to work, not have fun.”

So, let’s look at some of the games already.

I’m actually familiar with the first exercise in the book; I had to do it for a class.  It’s called “Getting to Know You,” and the object is to do one-on-one interviews with everyone and ask them questions that I feel are highly intrusive and the answers to which you’re certain to forget within five minutes of telling the rest of the team what you found out about Sally.  Here is a sample of the questions that are listed on the form that you’re supposed to fill out: Spouse’s Name, Spouse’s Employment or Activities, Children’s Names and Ages (man, way to take the challenge out of workplace stalking, guys), Person’s Hobbies, Spouse’s Hobbies (would “looking at Swedish horse on female pornography” be an acceptable answer here?), Favorite or Dream Vacation (that time we went to the nudist retreat was pretty cool) Best Personal Accomplishment (I kicked my crack addiction!), Favorite Colors (NONE OF YOUR GOD DAMN BUSINESS), and…… Strongest Feelings Shared During the Interview (total disgust at having to do this inane exercise.  Also, homicidal tendencies).

[note: Mr. Geek does NOT look at Swedish horse-on-female pornography]

I feel like this interview game really intrudes way too far on personal territory.  It’s not relevant to my team that I like Indian food or that my husband likes to play video games; moreover, it’s not smart to share that much personal information in the work environment.  I call this exercise a fail.  In fact, all of the “getting to know you” exercises are fail.  Nobody is going to remember all of that crap because it’s not in the kind of context that would allow you to remember it–whereas, if I were having a naturally-evolving chat with my teammate, I’d be able to create associations with my own experience that would allow me to remember that Johnny likes mountain climbing or Bill is a secret transvestite.

The entire next section is also worthless–”building team identity” exercises look suspiciously like “getting to know you” exercises, except that they’re also about how awesome it is to be part of a team.  Yawn.

In the “What Can Teamwork Achieve?” section, we have an exercise called “Anything I can do, we can do better.”  It’s designed to show you that solitary decision making is often less effective than group decision making by using arithmetic and rankings and so forth.  I only have two words to say to that: “mob mentality.”

Holy shit, I just found another exercise my business teacher used–I think she owns this book, seriously.

Okay, I can’t look through this book anymore.  My head is going to explode.

Look, if you’re thinking about getting this book, or if you think you need “team exercises,” I really don’t think you’re giving your team enough credit.  Try stepping back and letting your experienced professionals do their jobs; if you don’t have anything to do except for interfere with their jobs by using games better suited to children, perhaps a review of your own job duties is in order.  And to the authors: you manged to write a whole book of bullshit and get paid for it.  Well played.