Case study 4: Fun and games
Our client was the head of a capital markets group in the City. He understandably wanted an enjoyable offsite but also an intellectual one where participants actually learned a lot. The offsite involved over 100 members of the firm, senior and junior, from all over the world, all of whom had to be engaged in activities simultaneously.
Working closely with the training department, we put together a tailor made day consisting of devising two exercises, our "games". The two games were completely different and practised different skills en masse for the participants. The games were fun but demanding and, an important element for all of our courses, the participants had to spend very little time reading.
We enjoyed the day tremendously and the feedback we got indicated it was a huge success, to many veteran offsite attendees’ surprise and delight. While one game unearthed previously hidden qualities of negotiating and manoeuvring in amongst our participants, the other seemed to bring out some very competitive traits and creative thinking.
We were pleased to learn that the partners were still discussing tactics and analysing how they should have acted in their teams some weeks later.