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Teambuilding Icebreaker:
"Ten-Dollar Auction"
Purpose: To highlight the pros and cons of internal competition.
Set Up: An ordinary 10-dollar bill; a gavel (or some other heavy, hand-held object).
Process: Announce to the group that you will be auctioning off a $10 bill. The
bidding begins at $5, and yes, you really will be giving out the money, no matter how low
the highest bid. The game continues until you've called out "Going, going, gone" and slammed
down your gavel. In almost all cases, the bidding will continue beyond the $10 threshold, with
much excitement and high spirits. To ensure this result and to ratchet up the energy even higher,
conduct the auction again, this time announcing that the two highest bidders (the winner AND
the runner-up) must BOTH pay out their bids, regardless of the winner.
Discussion Questions: What made this game exciting? Why were the high-bidders willing to
go over and beyond the actually monetary value of the money? How effective is competition at raising
energy and morale? What are the possible downsides to excessive competition?
The Point: Competition is an almost sure-fire method for releasing adrenaline and getting people's
blood rushing - particularly in America's highly competitive culture and society. But competition has
a price. In our effort to beat out our rivals (often co-workers), we can easily fall into behavior
that disregards cost and time efficiency. Ten dollars has a clear monetary value of exactly $10 in
an even-tempered, thoughtful business environment. Once competition is added to the mix, however,
the atmosphere becomes more charged and the opportunity increases for hasty and imprudent decision-making.
A $10 bill, in this short-sighted, antagonistic environment, now gets purchased at $15, or $20, or even $30!
People lose sight of what a $10 bill really is; namely, a $10 bill! This fun little exercise is quite
effective for demonstrating the benefits of internal competition (i.e. employee enthusiasm, energy,
adrenaline) and the possible downsides of an adversarial environment (i.e. fiscal irresponsibility
and short-sidedness). It might also just make you a few easy bucks as well.
Feature Article:
TV's Survivor: Out-Sneak, Out-Greed, Out Team?
By Dave Blum
Hello. My name is Dave. I'm a Survivor junkie. For seven seasons (and three years) I've sat
glued to the tube every Thursday evening, eager to see what will happen next to the current group
of 16 TV castaways, whether they're sweltering on a desert island, baking in an African desert or
starving in the Australian Outback. For the entirety of its run, CBS' Survivor has been an
enormous ratings hit - easily the king of the reality shows - and it's still going strong this
season with the current "all-star" installment (of prior castaways). Survivor's appeal is simple:
beautiful locales, attractive contestants (often in bathing suits), unusual challenges, crisp
editing, conflict galore, and a million-dollar prize at the end for the "sole survivor". Think
National Geographic combined with Who Wants to Be A Millionaire combined with a daytime soap opera.
Survivor, brainchild of Aussie Mark Burnett, is also the closest network television has ever come to
presenting a weekly program about teambuilding. So close…and yet so very far.
For those of you who have somehow avoided the show and its ever-present TV trailers, here's the set up:
Sixteen Americans are dropped off in an exotic locale (most often a tropical island) with little more
than the clothes on their backs and some rudimentary supplies. Divided into two "tribes", contestants
must work as a team to "outwit," "outplay," and "outlast" their competition for 39 days, with the final
survivor taking home the million-dollar prize. As entertainment goes, Survivor is quite an enjoyable
and, for some of us, addicting piece of fluff. But the question (at least for business trainers like me)
remains: Is Survivor teambuilding? My answer, perhaps surprisingly, is a big YES…but with qualifications.
The show provides a rather effective blueprint for how businesses should, and should not go about putting
teams together.
To explain why I judge Survivor half a "teambuilding" program, I must first clarify my terms and define
what a team is. In The Wisdom of Teams (1993, Harper Business, pg. 45), Katzenbach and Smith offer a
useful description:
"A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose,
performance goals and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable."
Simply put, a well-constructed team is small, diverse and purposeful. Everyone on the team has the same
goals; everyone holds up his or her own end. Leaders building teams must guide their group from the early
formation stage all the way up to a high-performance level, nurturing trust, a common vision, and high
standards. And, in the end, the team must deliver results.
For its initial eight (or so) episodes each season, Survivor (I would argue) is the best teambuilding program
television has ever seen. Here you have two groups of strangers, thrown together in a barren (albeit photogenic)
setting. For survival's sake, each "tribe" must quickly build a shelter, haul water, make fire, and locate food.
Their "common purpose," at least at the beginning, is merely to stay alive. Once they've got their basic needs
stabilized, teams must now turn their attention to keeping everyone's strength up for the tests soon to begin.
And this is where it gets interesting. Every week the two tribes compete against each other in a pair of strenuous
and often ingenious challenges, usually involving swimming, climbing, puzzle-solving or the shooting of weapons.
The first test is always for a "reward," often blankets, fishing hooks, or some sort of foodstuff. The second,
however, is the key one. The losers of each week's "immunity challenge" go to "tribal Council," where they
must vote one of their teammates off the island (and hence off the show).
The stakes, then, are high indeed. Pull it together as a team or you'll a) go hungry and thirsty and/or b) lose
challenges and risk an early departure. The "performance goals" couldn't be clearer.
And pull it together the tribes do…for the most part, anyway.
In each group, "complementary skills" are quickly identified and implemented, in service of the team. The most
capable cook tends to step forward to take charge of the food preparation. The best architect emerges to head
up the shelter construction. The best hunters go out and hunt; the best gatherers go off and gather.
Likewise in the challenges, the best athletes contribute their particular talents for specific tasks.
The strongest person might, for example, play anchor in a tug-of-war. The best swimmer, given the choice,
might take an extra lap for a tired teammate. Watching the tribes assess their skills & abilities and divvy
up the tasks is quite a pleasure to behold!
And what are the high standards for which these tribe-mates hold themselves "mutually accountable"?
They are, quite simply:
- Be industrious in your chores.
- Compete in the challenges at the top of your ability.
- Abide by common decisions.
- Be agreeable and get along with others.
Tribemates failing to display any of these values can pay a dire price - both immediate and final. If
you're fellow team members see you as being either lazy or unpleasant, "accountability" is sudden and swift.
One second you're on the island, angling for the million-dollar prize, the next second you've got a target
on your back, and a likely ejection at tribal council.
If all this sounds a bit like "Lord of the Flies", there's certainly some of that in the early weeks of
the show, although things don't really descend to that level until the final half of the season. For the
first eight weeks or so, Survivor adheres fairly effectively to Katzenbach & Smith's team model.
Tribes:
- Are relatively small in number (eight members at the beginning, less as it goes along).
- Possess adequate levels of complementary skills.
- Agree on a common purpose (stay healthy, stay strong, win challenges).
- Adhere to a group approach (work hard, compete hard, get along).
- Commit to achieving performance goals
- Enforce a sense of mutual, enforceable accountability (mess up and you're out).
Sounds great, right? Cooperation, collaboration, and communication, on national television!
Alas, teamwork and mutual support just aren't "sexy" enough for the American public, at least according to
the producers of Survivor. Viewers demand conflict in their primetime television shows, and Burnett and
company are more than happy to oblige.
Thus, sometime around week nine - just when you and the contestants have gotten used to the teambuilding
theme - the game changes, irreversibly. Teams suddenly receive notice that they're now to be merged into
one big tribe. Gone are the group reward and immunity challenges that characterized (and motivated) weeks
one through eight. Henceforth it's all to be dog-eat-dog. Challenges are now for individual rewards and
individual immunity. No more teamwork. No more common goals. From here on, everyone is on their own.
Only one person, the winner of that episode's immunity challenge, is safe at the periodic tribal councils;
everyone else is vulnerable. In the end, only two castaways will remain, with the winner selected by a
"final council" consisting of the seven last-voted-out tribemates.
The "big shift," of course, alters nothing, and everything. Survivors still need to provide, food, water
and shelter. They still need to work hard at chores, and they must certainly continue to be at least
somewhat agreeable. What's changed is the ethic surrounding group performance. In short, there is no
longer a common enemy to rally against. Now, everyone is the enemy; everyone is an obstacle to you reaching
your own individual goals.
Within this new, internally competitive environment, new ethics and tactics emerge. Unlike before, when physical
talents were prized, even celebrated, the vital skills to develop in Survivor- Stage 2 are:
- The art of persuasion
- The skill of alliance building
- The ability to adapt to frequent change.
Keeping a low profile becomes particularly essential. If you're too strong and win too many challenges, you'll be
perceived as a threat and voted out. If you're too obvious in your string-pulling and alliance-building, you'll be
seen as a danger and risk ejection. Conversely, if you're too nice or too likeable, you may be seen as too likely
to win votes in the final council, and out you go. The second half of each Survivor season is thus an exercise in
behind-the-scenes scheming and manipulation, with the prize going to the most Machiavellian. Adhering to team values
actually works to your disadvantage in the second half, since there is no loyalty, no trust, and no common "team"
purpose. In a world where everyone is out for themselves, a team just slows you down.
I would love to make Survivor required viewing for all new and existing business teams. The first eight weeks of
the program showcase many of the necessary steps in proper team formation, while the final eight weeks demonstrate
some of the key temptations that tear teams apart. At the start of the show, people get to know each other. They
build trust. They identify their strengths and weaknesses. They rally around a common goal. And they hold each
other accountable to high standards. By the end, it's something of a free-for-all of ego-driven behavior and
separate, conflicting agendas. And isn't this just what happens to many business teams, especially in times of
high stress and low vigilance? People begin to think, "How is my continuing membership on this team going to
affect my career objectives?" Individual goals diverge from the group's goals, and the team comes tumbling down.
The only "survivors" are the best game-players, the shrewdest "politicians".
Do all teams, then, bow to entropy and eventual dissolution? Perhaps. Nothing lasts forever, and teams by their
very nature are created for quick mobilization and easy dismantling. Still, I believe teams can have long and
successful lives. What's needed is leadership and team members that stay committed to high team standards and
are vigilant against the forces that pull teams apart, such as egoism and career-ism. Management must bear as
much responsibility. Like Survivor's producers, management, too, has a choice. It can structure the "game" to
reward individual effort and internal competition. Or it can reward collective product and team results. Most
importantly, it can give teams thoughtful, meaningful, and relevant work to do, and the means to accomplish it.
Survivor has just begun its eighth season. I urge you to give it a try, but beware: you just might become a
Survivor addict yourself.
