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December 2006
Dr. Clue Teambuilding Newsletter, Volume IV, Issue 5
The Dr. Clue Newsletter is sent only to subscribers. We do not share names with anyone else. To receive your free subscription or to unsubscribe, email to drclue@drclue.com Dr. Clue: Solving the Puzzles of Teamwork
Welcome again to the Dr. Clue Teambuilding Newsletter! Well, here we are at the end of 2006, and once again I'm asking myself, "Where did the time go?" If I look at my calendar, the answer is obvious: heaps of mad rushing around the world, creating treasure hunts. Not a bad way to spend one's time, all in all. ☺ The year was capped with a flourish, as I flew off with my partner, Jen, for an exciting hunt in amazing Dubai. To read more about our adventures and misadventures in the United Arab Emirates, check out our feature article: "Double Trouble in Dubai." Now it's time to consolidate a bit, do some planning for 2007, and relax over the holidays. Only play for the next two weeks, everyone, okay?! In this month's issue, check out our most "memorable" icebreaker ever, and a puzzle that's certain to be just your type. Enjoy!
Dave Blum
Here's a quick jolt that helps participants discover basic psychological facts about our memory. Set Up: Process: Read the following list of words. Pause briefly between one word and the next. Do not change the sequence. One of the words (night) is repeated three times.
Pause for about 10 seconds. Ask each participant to take a piece of paper and write as many of the words as he or she can remember. Pause for about 40 seconds. Reassure participants that you are not interested in finding out how each person performed on the test. Instead, you are going to use the test to explore four basic principles about memory. Debrief: Here are four important principles about memory. Explain each of them, using data from participants' performance on the test:
The Point: Source:
Dr. Clue is the premier designer of corporate teambuilding treasure hunts, worldwide. We begin with the cool museum or historical neighborhood of your choice, convenient to your office or conference locale. We then bring the area alive by scouting out its hidden treasures; its statues, plaques, murals, and monuments. To reach each secret location, you and your team will need to solve our challenging, Da Vinci Code-like set of puzzles, codes and ciphers. Along the trail, we'll coach you on the steps successful business teams take in working towards high performance levels.
As a trainer, you have to be ready for anything. But sometimes even the best laid plans of mice and men go out the window and you have to scramble and always, always, this seems to happen when you're on the road. So there I was in Dubai a couple of weeks ago, about as far out on the road as you can get, in the midst of a nice little treasure hunt for a group of 11 natural gas analysts. Everything was going smoothly. The hotel conference room was comfortable and well-appointed. The clues were solid - play tested and nicely printed (in color) at the local Kinko's. (Yes, they have Kinko's in the United Arab Emirates.) The Polaroid cameras were loaded and working. The hunt participants were making good progress on Stage-One of their driving treasure hunt around Dubai City. All was ship-shape; I'd done my planning well and was feeling appropriately confident. And that, of course, is when I let my guard down and everything came acroper. Yes, my friends, I was about to enter treasure hunt hell! It went down like this: ascertaining that the group was okay without me, I hopped in a taxi and raced on over to one of my prime clue sites a glittering camel statue outside a luxury hotel. What better location, I figured, to get some photos of the teams on the hunt! In spite of the dreadful traffic (a Dubai specialty), I arrived at the clue location in plenty of time, jumped out of my cab and positioned myself discreetly in view of the camel. This was going to work out splendidly; I'd get some nice pics, hail another taxi, and meet the group at Planet Hollywood in plenty of time for lunch, just as I'd planned. And that's w-h-e-n...i-t...h-i-t...m-e; my bag was still in the trunk of the cab my bag with all the clues for Stage Two of the hunt! Trainer's Worst Case Scenario come true. Head spinning. Mind racing. Heart on course for thrombosis. "I am so sunk! I don't have the taxi driver's name, nor his license number or ID, nothing. All I have is a receipt for the 20 dirhams I paid him. If I grab a taxi and proceed to the lunch point, what do I tell the client? 'Oh, sorry, I've lost the second half of your program. Terribly sorry. Here's your money back.' Ten thousand miles I came for this program, and it's going up in a cloud of sheesha smoke. Argh!!. Clearly I had to shake this off and start thinking clearly. My plans were blown, sure. But there might still be some way to salvage the situation. It was time to scramble, and scramble I did. Fortunately for me, Dubai the Beverly Hills of Arabia is not what you would call a "developing country", where speedy customer service can sometimes be hard to come by. Hotels in Dubai place a particularly high emphasis on catering to the needs of the rich and famous. I am neither of these, of course, but I do a fair approximation of a desperate Westerner. Thus did I hurry to the nearest hotel bellman and explain my plight. "I need your help in tracking down a cab driver. Yes, I know, there are hundreds of drivers here in Dubai. There must be some way to find him." A quick scan of the cab receipt (a lucky thing I'd asked for it) revealed the name of the taxi company. My bellman said, "Let me call them." Ten minutes (and many miles of nervous pacing on my part) later, he came over to inform me that the taxi company had found my driver! He was 20 minutes away but on his way back for me soon with my bag (and my reputation!). Twenty minutes became forty, natch--this is Dubai, after all, a city with some of the most gridlocked streets to be found anywhere in the world (a rail system is under construction but still years away). But eventually my cab driver rolled on in. Off we plunged into the noontime traffic, inching our way painfully towards Planet Hollywood. In the end, I bustled into the restaurant just as my group was finishing their meal just in time for stage two of the hunt! I didn't get much to eat that day myself, apart from some crow, perhaps. But my scrambling had paid off. Planning is certainly to be recommended, both as a trainer and as a team member. But there are times when you just have to scramble. In the story above, I had planned my day and my program rather carefully; all should have gone well. The fact that it didn't had more to do with my own inattentiveness to my surroundings and belongingsŠwhich does happen sometimes when we facilitators are juggling multiple balls simultaneously. The lessons, I suppose, are: 1) Anticipate problems to the best of your abilities 2) Stay focused on the present as much as possible, all throughout the event 3) Expect that there will be unanticipated snafus and 4) Trust your ability to adapt and respond. Somehow I made it through, and I'll make it through again. Allah willing.
What does a teambuilding treasure hunt look, feel and sound like?
Answer to Last Issue's Puzzle In our last issue, we challenged you with a "Headhunter's" Puzzle. Quite aptly, the secret message, was: "Brainstorming." DR. CLUE HONOR ROLL The lucky winners of the drawing were: Congratulations to all of you! (If you haven't received them already, your prizes are on the way.)
Today's Puzzle Challenge: "Just My Type"
"(2) (3)' (4) (3) (15) (9) (8) (25) (15) (5) (9) (5) (7) (4) (25) (5) (16) (8) (12) (5) (3) (11) (26) (11) (4) (9) (7) (25) (13) (5) (16) (4) (3) (3) (16) (7) (25) (13) (4) (3) (13) (12) (8) (21) (5) (6) (13) (3) (15) (4) (3) (3) (12)." (The above quote is attributed to an enthusiastic, but somewhat geometrically-challenged professional athlete of some note.) Our Top Three puzzle solvers will appear in next issue's Dr. Clue Honor Roll. Wondering how a typical Treasure Hunt CLUE works? Click here. to follow along with one.
International - Middle East: ExxonMobil in Dubai USA -Northeast: G.E. Healthcare and Nexion in the Baltimore Inner Harbor; Pfizer at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC. -The South: Social Security Administration in New Orleans. -Midwest: Gripple in the Chicago Loop; the Social Security Administration in LoDo, Denver. -Southwest: ExxonMobil at the Woodlands Resort, near Houston, Texas. -Northern California: Adobe Systems, Kimpton Hotels and the Applied Improv Network in North Beach, San Francisco; Teranetics at Stanford University. -Southern California: Lord Bissell and Brook, Newport Beach. -Hawaii: Daimler/Chrysler in Wailea, Maui. Also still to come in 2007: New hunts in Pasadena, CA; Atlanta, GA; Kansas City, MO; and Galveston, TX!
Our clients, from Oracle to Yahoo, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Apple, and Wells Fargo all agree that Dr. Clue is cutting-edge teambuilding with a twist. Dr. Clue's E-BOOK, "Solving the Puzzles of Teamwork," is ready for download...and it's free! A compilation of past newsletter articles, it offers great essays about teamwork, roles & relationships, communication, motivation, leadership, and much more. Download it right to your screen by clicking here and choosing the e-book option. Enjoy!
Please let us know how we can improve this newsletter!! We welcome puzzles, icebreakers, real-life teambuilding success stories‹anything you'd like to contribute. And remember: If you liked this newsletter, please forward it to a friend or a colleague. Information is meant to be shared! Watch for the next edition of the Dr. Clue Teambuilding Newsletter in December.
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Dr. Clue Treasure Hunts
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