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The joys of team building
Pieter van Vuuren awoke to savage bright lights and the sound of someone screaming. He glanced at his watch – it was 4 a.m. He looked at the source of the noise: an angry, thickset man with a square jaw and steel-grey eyes. Among the flecks of spittle he was hurling in Pieter’s face was a stream of obscure obscenities that suggested perhaps it was time to get out of bed.
Pieter swung his legs out of the thin, threadbare sheets and placed his feet on the cold, grey floor.
The chill shocked Pieter from his slumber, and reminded his body that it was in pain. Suddenly it all started coming back to him: the previous day’s brutal training regime, the physical beatings, and the feelings of alienation, despondency and impending self-destruction. “Damn”, he thought, “I hate team building”.
It had started so well. Pieter and his colleagues at Orville, Maritz and Mangope assembled in the conference room awaiting the arrival of the CEO with, according to rumours, exciting news. Was a merger on the cards? Had someone bagged a big client? Was their BEE accreditation finally up to scratch? The possibilities abounded.
The CEO stepped in and, clearly unable to suppress his excitement any longer, announced to the hushed room, “Good news, everyone – we’re going team building!”
Someone in the room collapsed and died. Not really, but it certainly felt like it. A mixture of shock, horror and panic gripped the staff.
Those who knew what lay ahead scrambled to recollect the last team-building exercise and the images they had tried so hard to forget: the endless talking and pointing at the screen; mumbled presentations trying to inch their way through the hazy pain of pounding heads; the silly games that no one seemed particularly good at; and, of course, a shrieking Marieke from HR who’d clearly had too many Martinis.
“But best of all,” smiled the CEO, “this year we’re going to notch things up a bit.”
Pieter wondered if by ‘notch things up a bit’ the CEO meant someone may actually have to lose a limb.
“I think it’s time”, the CEO continued, blissfully unaware of the sea of slowly shaking heads before him, “that we really get to know each other, uncover our weaknesses, draw strength from those around us, and take this firm to the very cutting edge of financial services. Viva, Orville, Maritz and Mangope, viva!”
And with that he marched from the room, trailing a line of worried-looking depart- mental heads.
“How bad could it be?” One of the interns asked. Someone looked at him, gently smacked him around the back of the head and said, “You have no idea.”
They got an idea a couple of weeks later as the bus carrying the staff of Orville, Mauritz and Mangope passed a sign saying they were now in the Free State. Someone suggested they were going to Parys and said something about the banks of the Vaal River.
“But isn’t it pretty there?” Intern asked. For his naivety, he was rewarded with another gentle smack. “Pretty tough, you mean”, remarked someone at the back of the bus.
But their spirits were lifted as they entered the Shayawena Lodge and drove down a dusty road that wound its way between trees.
“Look,” someone shouted and stabbed a finger towards an opening in the trees.
Spread over a dusty field the size of a rugby pitch was an assortment of wood and rope constructions. Some of them had steps, some had ladders and one or two of them had barbed wire.
“Told you it was tough,” said the man at the back. This was clearly no normal rural getaway. The Orville, Mauritz and Mangope team were going back to basics. They’d arrived at boot camp.
That was yesterday.
Now, as Pieter looked at his colleagues stumbling from their beds, their bodies battered and bruised from all the crawling, clawing, climbing, leaping, swimming, swinging, grappling, and generally lying down and sobbing uncontrollably; he had to agree that somehow he did feel closer to them, almost proud to be with them. And he had witnessed some remarkable things, too.
He had seen Busi, his PA, grab a hunting knife and carve her initials into Simon the CFO; and Noeleen from Accounts, normally too shy to borrow a tea bag, rip open a sheep carcass with her bare hands and drape the entrails over her shoulders.
Yes, thought Pieter van Vuuren, from today the staff of Orville, Mauritz and Mangope were going to be different. They were going to be ruthless and efficient; and they were going to be a single operating unit.
And they would never scoff at team building again. In fact, they would count the days to the next adventure; and there were already rumours of where that would be: Baghdad! ▲
Daryl Ibury
