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There are some things
that we just won't do!
Currently, the corporate seminar
market is flooded with a wide range of team building and creativity
training options.
Recently 12 Burger King marketing executives experienced 1st
and 2nd degree burns while walking over hot coals at a team
building
event in October (Business 2.0, April, 2002, p. 65).
We'll refrain from making jokes about "having it your way"
or the benefits of "flame broiled goodness," but we
think the incident makes an important point. Your investment
of
time, money, and resources should yield fruitful outcomes not
serious injury. 
Attempting to capitalize on the (well deserved) success of Outward
Bound, a variety of former
leisure entrepreneurs turned "professional
team building experts" offer programs ranging from go-kart
racing - to fly fishing - to wine tasting - to search and destroy
laser tag / paintball competitions. After all, "nothing
says team building and creativity like the ritual (paintball)
execution
of someone that you will work with over the next few months."
We're
not just another "flavor of the month," corporate fad,
or a "canned" creativity
program.
We take your training needs seriously.
Our approach is not a team building Band-Aid that
temporarily covers up an important concern. Nor is our application
of Improv to team building and creativity training so conceptual
as to be impractical. Instead, our training presents specific
tools that quickly establish a framework for change in which
everyone
is committed to making imaginative contributions to corporate
and organizational success.
We won't
insult your intelligence or embarrass you.
We
have our standards for excellence and we know that you
have yours. We take the business
of corporate creativity, team building, and humor seriously. It
is not necessary to feel silly, stupid, or embarrassed
to learn while
having fun. Similarly, we don't view team building as a competitive
/ confrontational endeavor. Instead, the excitement and
enjoyment
generated by our team building and creativity training programs
is a natural outgrowth of the interactive form of Improv.
This means that
the tools and values learned during the training will endure long
after the conclusion of the seminar.
Even though some of the (actual corporate creativity
and team building training) activities below may have some value,
we promise not to:
- Place
participants in bumper cars and have them use a Jai-Alai scoop to
throw Whiffle balls at a backboard.
*
- Have
your employees learn to tap dance while they cook
pasta.
- Have
everyone put on dresses and dance the Can-Can (competitively).
- Compel participants
to determine which one of Snow White's Dwarfs they
most resemble and then require them to explain their reasoning to
the group.
Is this the type of team building / creativity exercise that will
make a difference?
- Insist on "trust walks" or "trust
falls."
What failed in the 60's and
70's won't work in the new millennium either. Yes - trainers
still do this. What's next, the return of powder blue leisure
suits?
- Use
tired old sports metaphors, and you can slap us
if we ever utter the phrase, Paradigm shift during any of our
team building
and creativity training seminars
- Sentence
your organization
or team to: Death by Overhead
--- projector that is!
To learn more
about our seriously fun, yet useful training,
please visit our
Training
pages .
And
*For
more (sadly) bizarre team building examples, read
this hilarious
article
.
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