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10 essential competencies for IT pros

2009-09-10 10 essential competencies for IT pros ........................................................................................................... 1

#1: Understanding existing and emerging technologies ........................................................................... 1 #2: Designing technical architecture ......................................................................................................... 2 #3: Integrating systems ............................................................................................................................. 2 #4: Understanding business practices, approaches, organization, politics, and culture ............................ 2 #5: Managing projects; planning, prioritizing, and administering work ................................................... 3 #6: Communicating and listening; gathering information ........................................................................ 3 #7: Focusing on results ............................................................................................................................. 4 #8: Thinking strategically ......................................................................................................................... 4 #9: Influencing and persuading ................................................................................................................. 4 #10: Being adaptable ................................................................................................................................. 5

Essential competencies for IT leaders ........................................................................................................... 6 Number one: Understand the company's politics and culture ................................................................... 6 Number two: learn how to gather information .......................................................................................... 6 Number three: Always think strategically ................................................................................................ 6 Number four: Master influence and persuasion ........................................................................................ 7 Number five: Be adaptable ....................................................................................................................... 7

Takeaway: If you're serious about becoming a successful, well-rounded IT professional, you need to constantly broaden your skills and knowledge--and in some areas that might surprise you. This list details key competencies that will help advance your career.

This article is also available as a PDF download.

By Jeff Relkin

Enjoying a successful career as an IT professional has always presented a challenge, in that you're expected to be a jack of all trades, master of none. Or maybe that's a master of all trades, jack of none. In any case, and however you approach it, you need a bewildering and ever-expanding array of cross-functional competencies to get and stay on top of your game. One thing in particular should strike you about the following list: Most of the competencies lie beyond the traditional IT skill set and could be equally well applied to other functional disciplines. There's less difference between us and "them" than is usually thought.

#1: Understanding existing and emerging technologies

Probably the most fundamental competency that all IT professionals need is a deep and broad knowledge base in their bread-and-butter technical skill sets. If we were talking about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, this would be the food and water level: No matter what else, you must have this for simple survival. Take courses, read publications, research products, join a professional organization, spend more time on TechRepublic, but make sure you have all the information you need on the technology you're using, along with the best practices for applying it.

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If you go for certifications, remember your goal is not simply to put more letters after your name but to maximize the value of the educational experience. Winning the game requires that you not only keep your eye on the ball but also anticipate what the next pitch will be. Historical evidence suggests that the average lifespan of any system is approximately 18 months, so the planning process for how you're going to replace what you just built starts pretty much the moment you finish building it. Planning is a lot more effective when you know what you're talking about. Being informed on emerging trends is a fundamental job responsibility, something in our business that needs to be done daily to keep up.

#2: Designing technical architecture

Anyone can build a system component that as an individual function is brilliantly conceived and executed. But if it sputters and groans when you plug it into the larger system, you haven't accomplished very much. Whether you're responsible for overall application and network design or part of a team building components in support of an enterprise architecture, you need to know the principles of good, solid architectural design.

The design of an effective technical architecture puts the pieces together such that the machine works without sacrificing ease of use and cost. I've always found that architectural design is best done when based on Occam's Razor, which literally translates from Latin as "entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily." Stated another way, simpler is better. When thinking about design, remember that while every organization has some unique processes, most operational procedures are fairly common and can be addressed with configurable commodity solutions. Many architectures can be based on buying and assembling a fairly small number of pre-existing components rather than trying to reinvent a better mousetrap. By so doing, you can typically provide your customers with a quality, easy-to-operate product in less time and at less cost. This same concept translates equally well to the design and development of individual applications and systems.

#3: Integrating systems

Technology serves many purposes, and high on the list of important capabilities is automating processes. Rather than use traditional methods of ordering supplies, managing inventory, and getting products to market, supply chain processing streamlines the operation by allowing suppliers and producers to control the complex interactions that enable raw materials to move through the manufacturing process and get finished goods in the hands of customers. Any organization that has an architecture populated by legacy systems (and who doesn't) can improve productivity through better movement of data through those applications. Sarbanes-Oxley and other regulatory compliances require companies to certify internal controls, which are often found at the common boundaries between systems. As products and platforms continue to proliferate and as companies increasingly connect their systems with others, high quality interoperability is imperative.

#4: Understanding business practices, approaches, organization, politics, and culture

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Corporate entities are complex organisms, and just like snowflakes, no two are the same. The dynamics that drive how a particular business operates are not easily understood. Oftentimes, especially in larger organizations, multiple cultures must be reckoned with--one at the enterprise level and others at the divisional or departmental level. And just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, your finely honed instincts about how your company works fail you in the wake of a merger or management upheaval that changes everything. We ignore politics at our own peril. We may dislike ostrich managers--those who put their heads in the sand and pretend nothing's going on out there. But we can't be so smug as to think we can navigate treacherous corporate waters without paying any attention to the strength of the tides or the direction of the winds. Likewise, although much about organizational dynamics is generic, transferable knowledge, it's foolish to think that success in one corporate environment guarantees success in another. We must learn the idiosyncracies of each new environment we find ourselves in.

#5: Managing projects; planning, prioritizing, and administering work

Joe Torre is commonly regarded as one of the best managers of all time. It's doubtful that the New York Yankees would have had nine out of 10 first place finishes, six AL championships, and four World Series rings since 1995 if Joe didn't have a pretty good game plan. Not just a plan on how to get to and win in the post season each year, but a plan for each and every game.

Whether you're a manager or a player, a superstar or a second stringer, you have to be able to plan your work for the short and long term. What do you plan to do today? This week? This year? How are you going to achieve that? Ask a lot of questions that begin with "what" and "how." If you're a developer or a net admin and you have any designs on making it into the management ranks someday, you need to be developing those planning skills right now. If you can't manage yourself, you're surely going to have a hard time successfully managing people and complex projects.

#6: Communicating and listening; gathering information

Be mediocre at everything else but be perfect at this: communication. It's one of the two key competencies everyone must have, and it's especially important for IT pros. Good communication is bidirectional, giving as much as receiving. This is a wonderful place to indulge your generous spirit, because there's no such thing as too much communication.

No matter what you think you do for a living, every IT professional is actually a consultant. As a consultant you have a responsibility to your customer to provide maximum value. Doing so means you know your customers' business at least as well as they do, and that means listening. Your customers are entitled to know what they're getting for the money they're paying you, and that means you must proactively and regularly let them know what you're up to on their behalf.

This is a hard one for your typical IT professional. Most of us went into this field in part because we related more to code and wires than we did to people. And most of us, by and large, are accommodating folks. We hate to say no, and we hate to deliver bad news. Better to just sit at our desks with our heads down and do our jobs. These are all fatal mistakes, and although it's far from easy and may be run counter to your personality, you have no choice but to develop these skills. Here's the good news: Anyone can learn how, and it gets easier with time and practice.

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#7: Focusing on results

The other absolutely critical competency is the ability to execute. Plans are great, but talk is cheap. At the end of the day, you have to have something to show for your efforts. A good way to start is by knowing some key facts about your customer, like who are they and what do they want? As an IT professional operating consultatively, you have a responsibility to advise your customer, based on your knowledge and experience. But don't forget that ultimately it's up to your customer--your boss, your co-worker, your team leader, whoever is the ultimate consumer of your efforts--to make the decisions, and sometimes those decisions are not what you recommend. Check your ego at the door and do what's necessary to achieve the agreed-upon results. Don't let analysis paralysis slow you down and don't indulge yourself in a quixotic crusade to achieve some random level of perfection. The 80-20 rule is in force: 80 percent of the result can be achieved through 20 percent of the effort, and the incremental value beyond that level is frequently not worth the cost.

#8: Thinking strategically

It's an increasingly competitive world, and today's IT professionals must prove, every day, that they can add tactical and strategic value and that they belong and are welcome at any meeting taking place anywhere in their organizations. Over the course of the last 10 or so years, businesses have started to recognize the strategic importance of IT and to see that IT is not just a backwater stepchild of the accounting department but adds value throughout the organization. IT professionals are service providers, and we must think of ourselves as such.

Get intimate with your company's business and strategic plans and constantly strive to come up with ways of supporting and furthering those plans. Your company has no such plans? Devise one for technology. Your department, at least, will be operating strategically and you may be able to use that as a springboard to provide thought leadership to management in expanding the plan to cover the whole business.

Most IT departments are reactive, waiting for their business customers to bring them ideas for new systems. High functioning, highly successful IT departments are proactive, working consultatively and collaboratively with their business customers in pursuit of overall corporate goals and objectives.

#9: Influencing and persuading

The military style hierarchial chain-of-command organizational model of the 1950s has given way to flatter, more horizontal structures. I know, we all still have bosses, and bosses still have direct reports. However, the person who does your performance review may not be the one giving out your work assignments. Throw into the mix some geographical dispersion, add a dash of decentralization and a pinch of autonomous work groups, and you've got quite a stew.

Direct management has been supplanted by influence management. We no longer order people to do things, we sell them on it. We convince them. We negotiate, cajole, and urge. Remember communication? Here's a great place to exercise all those wonderful communication muscles you've been developing. This is a capstone competency, in that it brings to bear other skills, including strategic thinking and results orientation. IT professionals adept at influencing others almost always stand out as effective, competent,

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well regarded producers. Don't make the mistake of thinking this is a competence for managers only. Influence and persuasion are among the key skills that drive collaborative work environments.

#10: Being adaptable

Gone forever are the days when being a technology professional meant having expertise in a particular development environment or being able to build and support a network. Don't get me wrong, you can still make a good living doing just those things, and you're every bit as professional as anyone else who gets paid to provide an IT service. But to become a truly well-rounded IT professional, you need to work constantly on expanding and honing your skills.

Some competencies, such as technical skills and knowledge, are relatively easy to acquire. Others, such as business knowledge, take more time. Management of individuals and teams, leadership, and the ability to work collaboratively with colleagues and customers require behavioral competencies based on personal attitudes and characteristics.

If you chose a career in IT, you also chose, by definition, to be an agent of change. Our profession changes swiftly and profoundly, and we have to take seriously our responsibility to change along with it. Our businesses change, like it or not. Competitive pressures, new industry entrants, management turnover, strategic shifts, product development, and any number of other factors cause change. There's almost no area in any organization that isn't touched by technology, and as responsible professionals, we must help by leading our organizations in adapting to that change.

Jeff Relkin has 30+ years of technology-based experience at several Fortune 500 corporations as a developer, consultant, and manager. He has also been an adjunct professor in the master's program at Manhattanville College. At present, he's the CIO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a federal government agency located in Washington, DC. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the views of MCC or the United States of America.

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Essential competencies for IT leaders Jason Hiner: To succeed as an IT leader, you'll need a full arsenal of cross-functional skills -- including a lot of stuff that goes beyond the traditional IT skill set. Certainly it helps to be well grounded in the technologies you're using, and it's become increasingly important to have strong business management skills. But some of other essential competencies may be a bit harder to pin down.

I'm Jason Hiner, and today on Sanity Savers for IT Executives, I'll discuss several skills you need to develop if you're going to excel in your IT leadership role. And some of them might surprise you.

Number one: Understand the company's politics and culture Most companies are complex organisms, and the dynamics that drive how a particular business operates are not easily understood. Oftentimes, especially in larger organizations, you have to deal with multiple cultures -- one at the enterprise level and others at the divisional or departmental level.

And just when you think you have things figured out, your instincts fail you in the wake of a merger or management upheaval that changes everything. Many IT leaders ignore company politics at their own peril. Much about organizational dynamics is generic, transferable knowledge, but it's foolish to think that success in one environment guarantees success in another. You have learn the idiosyncrasies of each new company and environment you find yourself in.

Number two: learn how to gather information Be mediocre at everything else but be perfect at this: communication. Good communication is bidirectional, giving as much as receiving. This is a wonderful place to indulge your generous spirit, because there's no such thing as too much communication.

Many IT pros went into this field in part because they relate more to codes and wires than to people. However, most of them, by and large, are accommodating folks. You hate to say no, and you hate to deliver bad news. But even though it's far from easy, you have no choice but to develop these skills. Here's the good news: Anyone can learn how, and it gets easier with time and practice.

Number three: Always think strategically It's an increasingly competitive world. Your IT department must prove, every day, that it can add tactical and strategic value and that it belongs at any meeting taking place anywhere in your organization.

Get to know your company's business and strategic plans very well and constantly strive to come up with ways of supporting and furthering them.

Your company has no such plans? Devise one for technology. Your department, at least, will be operating strategically and you may be able to use that as a springboard to provide thought leadership to management in expanding the plan to cover the whole business.

Most IT departments are reactive, waiting for their business customers to bring them ideas for new solutions. High functioning, highly successful IT departments are proactive, consulting and collaborating with their business customers in pursuit of overall corporate goals and objectives.

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Number four: Master influence and persuasion Direct management has been supplanted by influence management. We no longer order people to do things, we sell them on it. We convince them. We negotiate, cajole, and urge. Being good at this requires both strong communication skills and strategic thinking.

IT leaders who are adept at influencing others almost always stand out as effective, competent, and well regarded. Incidentally, this isn't just a competence for managers. You should also foster the skills of influence and persuasion among your staff because they're essential to driving collaborative work environments in order to get stuff done.

Number five: Be adaptable.

By definition, choosing a career in IT means choosing to be an agent of change. This profession changes swiftly and profoundly, and you have to take seriously your responsibility to change along with it.

Businesses change, too, like it or not. Competitive pressures, new industry entrants, management turnover, strategic shifts, product development, and any number of other factors cause change. There's almost no area in any organization that isn't touched by technology, and as an IT leader, you must help your organizations adapt to regular changes.

Being an effective IT leader requires a unique combination of business knowledge and a strong understanding of technology. But as we've seen, there's a lot more to it than that. Developing insights into corporate dynamics, communicating and listening, thinking strategically and proactively, and being persuasive and adaptable are all part of the mix.

For further reading on this topic, see Jeff Relkin's article "10 essential competencies for IT pros."

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10 things you can do to make your presentations more effective

To advance and succeed in your career, you need more than just technical skills. You also need to be able to present your ideas clearly and persuasively. Here are some suggestions that may help you in that regard. They assume you are in front of a group, using the ubiquitous PowerPoint and a projector. However, the principles generally apply regardless of your actual type of delivery.

Note: This information is also available as a PDF download.

#1: Channel your nervousness

You’ve probably heard of that survey, right? The one that said most people fear public speaking more than they fear dying? Nervousness grips nearly every speaker, regardless of the topic or the size of the audience. In fact, there’s probably something wrong with a speaker who fails to experience nervousness. The trick is to avoid having the nervousness paralyze you. Rather, channel it productively, allowing it to energize you and your presentation.

#2: Know the material

The best way to control that nervousness is to know your material. All of the other tips in the world are useless if you’re unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the material you’re presenting. I’ll talk later about how you should interact with the slides themselves. For now, I’ll just say that the more you know and care about your material, the more effective your presentation will be. If you’re talking about a product, how often have you used it — and what gotchas can you share? In other words, what can you offer beyond what people can Google for themselves?

Knowing the material doesn’t mean memorizing a presentation. Audiences will recognize memorization, and it will turn them off.

If you really know your material, you can be free of the lectern and be directly in front of your audience. Your presentation will have more life, and your audience will appreciate it more.

#3: Organize the material

Public speakers have an adage:

• Tell ‘em what you’re gonna tell ‘em. • Tell ‘em. • Tell ‘em what you told ‘em.

In other words, a good presentation has an opening, a body, and a conclusion.

The effectiveness of your opening can determine the success of your presentation. You want to capture your audience’s attention and draw them into your presentation. For example, when I do my talks on customer service and communications, I ask the audience for examples of times they, as customers, have

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been annoyed or upset. Other effective openings employ humor (see below), a quotation (a good reference is Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations), or a hypothetical situation to stimulate or even scare the audience. (For example,. “Suppose you arrived at work and the CEO confronted you, saying the data for the entire company was gone. How would you react and how could you prevent such a situation?”)

In the body of your presentation, make sure you cover the points you allude to in your opening. Finally, conclude your presentation with a summary of what you said. Make sure your material makes logical sense and that it flows smoothly from one topic to the next.

When preparing your slides, remember the “six-six” rule: A maximum of six words per line and a maximum of six lines per slide.

#4: Make contact with the audience

Many guides on presentations advise the speaker to look attendees in the eye. This advice, while well-intentioned, can cause distraction for a speaker. A better technique, I have found, is to look not into their eyes but at the bridges of their nose. When I do so, I’m less likely to be distracted, but it still looks like I’m looking at their eyes.

The worst option is to avoid all eye contact at all. Your talk will fail to connect, and your audience will feel excluded.

#5: Consider using a wireless mouse or pointer

I have found the wireless device is the best option for advancing your slides. None of the other alternatives work as well. Moving forward to press the Enter key manually takes time and distracts the audience. Relying on an assistant to do so requires good communications with that person and carries the possibility of a missed cue. Setting timings in the slide show to advance slides automatically limits your spontaneity.

I once delivered a presentation using my wireless mouse and later got a complaint that its red light distracted an attendee. Since then, I’ve made sure either to cover that light with my hand or else to tape it up.

#6: Empty your pockets

Before I deliver a presentation, I clear my pockets of any loose coins and my keys. That way, there’s nothing to jingle or otherwise make noise. Just remember to put them back when you’re finished.

#7: Properly handle questions from the audience

If you take a question from the audience, first repeat it so everyone can hear. Then, thank the questioner and answer the question. Finally, follow up to make sure you answered the question. Repeating the question first helps put your answer into context. Thanking the questioner allows you to gracefully “cut away” from him or her, so that you’re talking to the whole audience.

If you sense that the answer will take longer than a few moments, offer to speak with the questioner after the session.

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#8: Avoid looking at the screen

The audience wants to see your face, not the back or side of your head. Looking at the screen while you’re talking breaks eye contact, and makes the audience feel disconnected.

“But wait,” you say, “How else can I know what my audience is seeing unless I too look at the screen?” Position equipment in the following sequence: screen / you (the presenter) / laptop computer and LCD projector / audience. Now, set your laptop for dual display, that is, so that images go BOTH to the LCD projector AND to your laptop. With this setup, you no longer need to look at the screen, because you will see the same display on your laptop.

#9: Embellish, don’t read

My wife teaches English at a local college, and a few years ago I attended an academic conference with her. Looking back at the one session I attended, I would have preferred root canal surgery. Each participant (there were four or five on the panel) handed out his or her paper before the session started. They then proceeded, in sequence, to read their paper verbatim.

Don’t insult your audience. They can read your slides themselves. What they want is your added value. So when you present, embellish the slides with your own comments and insight. Don’t just read the slides yourself.

#10: Use humor effectively

Humor, when used correctly, can break tension for both you and the audience and can help them connect with you. You don’t need to be a Rodney Dangerfield. People generally aren’t expecting humor, and they aren’t expecting a professional stand-up comic, so your chances of making humor work are greater.

A great book that can help in this area is A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Boardroom: Using Humor in Business Speaking, by Michael Iapoce. He talks about various aspects of humor, how and why humor works, and how a good joke should be structured.

My preferred form of humor is to make fun of myself. Once, I was doing a presentation right before one by Scott Waddle, the former commander of the submarine U.S.S. Greeneville, which struck and sank a Japanese fishing boat in 2001. The first thing I asked the audience was, “Who’s looking forward to hearing Commander Waddle?” As expected, the entire room raised their hands. “In other words,” I continued, “You can’t wait for me to finish.”

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Resources for facilitating training

Takeaway: Whether you call yourself a trainer or a facilitator, this site provides valuable information to enhance your productivity.

All trainers find themselves in the role of facilitator—some more than others. In fact, some organizations use the terms “trainer” and “facilitator” interchangeably. If you or those in your organization are called on to lead problem-solving meetings, team-building sessions, or are otherwise put in a position to design or lead meetings, visit the Facilitation Factory. Overview This site, provided by Calian, a large consulting firm in Canada, is designed to support facilitators and has quite a grand goal: “Our vision is to have thousands of facilitators working together to advance the knowledge of facilitation around the world.” This site approaches this goal with both free and members-only sections. There are four major portions of the site:

1. The Source 2. The Facilitators’ Forum 3. The Facilitators’ Coach 4. Resources

The Source The Source is the members-only section of this site. If you don’t want to pay the U.S. $99 annual fee, or if you want to look and see what you get for that fee, you have two options. You can get immediate access to a subset of the material or a 24-hour trial membership. Whichever one you choose to explore, you will be impressed by the array of ideas included. This section is driven by a Lotus Notes database and is easy to navigate to find what you need. Among the topic areas included are Definitions, Facilitation Concepts, Quotes, Homework Exercises, Workshop Exercises, and Interview Questions. If you do a significant amount of facilitation or teach a workshop on facilitation, you will gain much value from this section. The Forum The Forum is the most content rich of the site's free portions. It contains three subsections. “Facilitate this!” contains a current survey question pertinent to facilitators that you can answer. There are also archives of past questions. Once you weigh in with your response, you can see the tally of responses so far. Past questions are archived with the results available. As an example, here is one of the archived questions (and the answers!): What is the ideal number of participants for a break out group?

Choice Responses

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1-3 71 4-6 254 7-9 121 10-12 71

A group of articles on facilitation topics, called “The Magazine Rack,” is another subsection. Currently, there are about 20 articles in topic areas, including Change Management, Facilitation, and Learning. The overall quality of these articles is high and well worth your inspection. Additionally, you are encouraged to submit your article for inclusion. This is a good opportunity to have your thoughts seen by the community of facilitators who use this site. The third subsection is a chat area. While I did not investigate this area at length, it seems to be a good opportunity to network if chatting works for you (and you find others online at the same time you are). You could also have a group of colleagues plan to meet here at the same time to chat about business matters in a business-like area, rather than in a general chat room. The Coach This section largely provides Calian a chance to describe their two two-day workshops. There is, however, a section on “What is facilitation,” which is a good primer for new trainers that might be useful as you share more about the role of facilitation with management in your organization. Resources The Resources section provides link archives of an excellent e-zine on facilitation (and the opportunity to subscribe), a link to the site for IAF (the International Association of Facilitators), and to nine other sites relevant to facilitation. If all the links are of that quality, this list alone warrants a visit. Rest assured that if they are, you will see them reviewed here in future weeks! (Note: Upon my review of this area, I noticed that my company’s site—the Discian Group—is included as well—what a pleasant surprise!) Final impressions Overall, this is a very impressive and useful site. While part of the site carries a membership fee, which may be a barrier to some, the rest of the site contains top-flight content well worth a bookmark. As a professional trainer and facilitator, I consider the content of this site to be some of the most relevant and useful of any I have seen. Point your browser here and prepare to benefit, the download time for some of the pages notwithstanding. Figure A shows the summary of my review.

Table A

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Here’s Kevin’s summary of his review of FacilitationFactory.com.

• People who read this, also read...

• Estimate project costs after you have estimated effort and duration • Bring co-workers together with a team building exercise • Office functions: Mandatory fun? • 10 essential competencies for IT pros • Boosting morale pays off for everyone

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Bring co-workers together with a team building exercise

A news story slipped by my blog-oscope yesterday, even though I featured it in the IT News Digest newsletter. I couldn’t resist it for two days in a row, so without further adieu: “In corporate ‘Spy Game,’ work equals play.”

According to this story, “‘The Spy Game’ is the latest corporate team building exercise from the creators of ‘The Go Game,’ which hundreds of companies nationwide have used over the years to facilitate effective teamwork… teams of five to 10 co-workers set out to solve a mystery, like the disappearance of an executive, or some other corporate intrigue. The idea is to get team members to collaborate on projects and learn more about delegating and sharing responsibility.”

Ian Fraser, a co-founder of The Go Game, explains the three main types of missions that players face:

1. “Sneak and snoop around” missions - these ”require players to find something stashed in a public place by one of the game’s facilitators or to interpret a piece of public art work looking for a message related to the story line.”

2. “Plant” missions - the “players have to figure out a way to unearth the hidden actor in a public place.”

3. “Creative” missions - these ”require participants to solve a task and create some form of video with their camera–like a review of a hot product in the year 2050–often in some way related to the client company’s products or services.”

I have to admit that it does sound like fun. But all this fun has to be expensive, right? “TeamBuildingUSA.com charges clients as much as $225 a person, for groups that can number in the hundreds… The Go Game typically charges about $100 a head and can facilitate groups of 3,000 or more. For ‘The Spy Game,’ the groups are limited to about 250 people. Companies seem to be willing to pay that much because they feel the games get results.” At that price, I should hope so!

TechRepublic has never participated in The Go Game, but we did have a team building exercise almost two years ago that was insightful and fairly entertaining. We played the “Toyota assembly line” game, where co-workers grouped at several tables and put together car pieces in an assembly line fashion. Each person had a set job, including a “conveyance” person who acted like a go-between worker - and there was even a emergency shut-down chord we could pull at every station if there were any problems. Was the training worth the hefty price they most likely paid? Probably not. However, there was a sense of camaraderie that was formed during that time, mostly in the way of inside jokes and “Can you remember when we assembled CARS? Sheeeesh…”

What other types of team building exercises have you experience or heard about? I’m interested in hearing about the successful ones and the complete failures.

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