That was fun! We’ve just spent a day and half with a team who were ready and willing to share and be open with each other. It’s so satisfying when a plan becomes reality and the outcome exceeds expectations.

The Onion Peelers are known for their stimulating cross-cultural training programmes, peeling away the layers of misunderstanding across cultures. We also create teambuilding events which combine our passions for cross cultural understanding, MBTI, high performing teams and peeling.

We’d like to share with you a recent experience of teambuilding for you to get a sense of what we love doing. Our client wanted the team to be unified, autonomous, and open. This was the first time the team had come together for such an activity. The team comprised of  Chinese and British nationals. The event was delivered in both Chinese and English with two facilitators.

Not ones for simply following the book, we took ideas and combined them to layer the experience for the participants. We set up individual MBTI sessions, flying to the various locations to do so. We believe that giving this individual attention makes any personality profiling tool more meaningful compared to doing it in a large group setting (and if the leader is there, the answers are usually unclear!). The added benefit to us, the facilitators, is that we knew the team before we started the teambuilding and could prepare the event with them in mind.

On the morning of the first day, we clarified the team’s individual type through splitting exercises. Here, instead of using the usual describe-and-define a picture, we invited the participants to draw their OWN pictures – a much more fun activity than writing! This also helped the group relax and laugh. From the pictures, it was quite clear to see the preferences at work! To boost their creativity, we adapted the Getzels-Jackson test (one question: how many uses can you think of for a brick?). For this group, we decided to choose an object related to China. So we chose …chopsticks. (At the team dinner that evening, we asked the team about the brick.)

The afternoon was more focused on building trust, unifying the team and creating an environment where they would feel safe and respected so that they could share openly. The team started out by defining their own team values as their Key Success Factors. These KSFs then became the criteria on how to measure the team’s performance throughout the rest of the programme.

We started with a blindfold activity to build trust. In pairs and with one person blindfolded, the group walked down some stairs and then down the escalator (that was scary) from the training room to the hotel entrance. In the park, the fun just got better!

You may know the Amoeba game already where the group must stay in circle through holding hands or linking arms and move from point A to B. In our activity, we combined this game with orienteering. We gave each team member a photograph of part of the route for which they were responsible. The photograph represented data or information vital to the success of the group. They were not allowed to give the photograph to another person but could show it. We also told them how long the other team had taken to complete the task. You can imagine the chaos as each member wanted to share their information and direct the team at the same time!

Although the activity took only 15 minutes, the debrief was much more valuable. The team evaluated themselves according to their own values (KSF). As Onion Peelers, we peeled away at what was really happening – for example: not listening to each other, no clear leadership, not all engaged, not speaking your mind – through carefully phrased questions. This put the team in a deep contemplative mood and encouraged them to do the route again as a more unified, engaged and passionate team.

The second day shifted from MBTI and teambuilding to cross-cultural differences, but not in the usual seminar led method. We didn’t discuss the do’s and don’ts of working across cultures – you can read that on the web! We went deeper, to investigate the values, expectations and assumptions of the team. At first the discussion was mainly a comparison between China and the UK. Soon however the team realised that they can only talk about their OWN experience and could not generalise about ALL Chinese or ALL British. It’s just not possible.

The biggest learning for the group was the different ways to express the same values. They really got the point that, in order to improve teamwork, they must engage in robust conversations and share more to understand each other deeply.

This was not traditional teambuilding / cross culture / MBTI training. This was true peeling away the layers of misunderstanding between cultures, teams and individuals.

This is what The Onion Peelers do.