Wall of shame, managers' love fest, and the ketchup song

In which the author goes through Survivor: Antipolo and other team building
exercises
By Heinz Bulos
May 2003

o there I was dangling more than ten
eet in the air, with our o my
colleagues, or should I say angels,
gripping my arms and reaching or my let
leg to lit me up rom the \all o
Shame`.

\elcome to team building hell.

Some months ago, our entire management
team went up the hills o Antipolo or a
three-day leadership and team building
seminar and workshop at the amed
MMLDC, Meralco loundation`s center
or deelopment.

Originally designed to train Meralco`s
thousands o employees, including
proessional linemen, the training has
since been opened to other companies,
such as Pilipinas Shell, Nestle Philippines,
Luthansa 1echnik, and San Miguel
Corporation. \e were one o the latest
casualties o lR practitioners.

Meralco`s training center is irst-rate. 1he
amenities can pass o as a country club,
complete with sports acilities, gardens,
swimming pool, a grotto, a museum, a
pailion, an aiary, and most important o
all, a ideoke bar ,the oosball table is a
crowd drawer,. 1he academic, residence,
and ood halls are clean and well-
equipped.

My adice: enjoy the acilities on your irst
day. 1raining is serious business, and or
the rest o your stay, it will be non-stop
actiity and exercise rom eight to ie
,and sometimes een past your bedtime,.

Depending on the program your company
signs up or, you`ll likely hae a
combination o lecture-type seminars and
group actiities as well as indoor and
outdoor exercises. \e started our irst day
dancing to the tune o 1he Ketchup
Song`, a.k.a. Asereje`, a.k.a. the latest
international annoying noelty song, while
shouting \ho`s number \e`re number
one!` In pairs.

lortunately, while we didn`t start on the
right oot ,no pun intended,, the rest o
the seminar was admittedly un. I mean,
throwing plastic balls across the room and
playing charades is always un, right

It`s important to insist or your right to
know what the rest o the actiities are.
Otherwise, ater touring the team building
area named 1he 1ropical Rainorest, you
and your colleagues are bound to mount a
mutiny. \ou see, there`s an army-type
obstacle course ,reminiscent o 1akeshi`s
Castle, but not unny,, high wires between
poles dozens o eet tall that hae to be
crossed, and a diagonal wire stretching
rom way up where people slide in a
harness towards the ground below. 1hat
last structure is called Leap o laith. I call
it Slide to lell.

So or two straight days, we were all
dreading the physical pain we expect to
endure. A ew o us hae their well-
rehearsed health excuses on hand. 1he
rest o us were shamelessly announcing
our lack o athletic prowess and out-o-
shape bodies. One een oered to be
demoted to sta status just to aoid this
whole management exercise. 1his is, we
all agreed, like Surior: Antipolo`.
S

All that ulcer-inducing distress or
nothing. It turned out we were not going
to die young, ater all. 1he only physical
actiity we had on the second day was a
trust-building exercise called lalling` ,or
whateer it`s called,, where each team
member alls, back irst, body straight,
rom a platorm, towards two rows o a
hal dozen team members acing one
another with outstretched arms, orming a
cushy web on which to all on. It`s
intended to deelop trust on your
colleagues. As a bonus, it also deeloped
my arm muscles.

On the third day, we rose again, early in
the morning. Ater a tiring treasure hunt,
we did three physical actiities in
succession. 1he irst was called Log
Cross`, where two teams acing each
other hae to cross a single row o logs
and exchange positions, without anyone
alling o ,otherwise, we had to start all
oer,. It wasn`t exactly un, as it took as
more than an hour to inish the darn
actiity, in which we sweated under the
sweltering sun while holding on to each
other or dear lie.

1he second was called Llectric lence`,
wherein the entire team had to pass
through a hole` about three eet o the
ground to the other side without any part
o our body touching the surrounding
wire and crossing the imaginary wall
,otherwise, we had to start all oer.do
you see the trend,. 1hat requires the irst
and last person to do some acrobatic stunt
to pass through, since no one on her side
will be let to lit her. 1hat also requires
enormous strength to lit some o our
heayweights ,I like to say I belong to the
upper-middleweight diision, just
something I made up,. \e did complete
the course ater only two tries.

1he third was the \all o Shame`. 1he
objectie was to climb across the wooden
wall, about 12 to 15 eet tall, without any
rope ,although one person can use the
rope only once, and without clinging to
the holes in the wall. Only our persons
are allowed to stay on the platorm on the
other side o the wall to lit other team
members. But the irst o those our has
to climb up on his own. Do you see the
dilemma So that means orming some
sort o a human pyramid, but we weren`t
allowed to be on all ours because that`s
dangerous or our backs. \e were
allowed, howeer, to orm a pyramid
standing up and letting other team
members climb on our shoulders. I was
one o the guys who ormed the base and
all I can say is Aww, that hurts!`
Somehow, ater a ew desperate and
unsuccessul attempts, we inally managed
to get our biggest and strongest colleague
up. \ith our most physically it colleague
liting eeryone else rom the base, it was
all smooth sailing. \ell, it was more o
rough sailing, but we inished the course.

1he workshop wasn`t all un and games
and physical torture, o course. \e did
hae quite a number o eel-good sessions.
1he irst one, held during the aternoon
o our second day, was sharing our hand-
drawn Me 1ree`, with our sun
,aspirations,, dark clouds ,weaknesses,,
ruits ,accomplishments,, trunk
,strengths,, roots ,alues,, and ground
,principles,. \hat was scheduled or an
hour and a hal stretched till eening. It
was partly because we enjoyed sharing and
learning about one another`s motiations.
But it was really because we conspired the
day beore to extend our learning sessions
to aoid the physical actiities scheduled
next. So, early on, we were already
practicing team building on our own.

1he last actiity was what the acilitators
call a git` that we were supposed to
oer one another, that is, the git o praise
and positie reinorcement. I call it our
managers` loe est`. One by one, we
had to hold hands ,or extend a manly
shake or guy-to-guy interaction, and tell
one another what we like or admire about
that person. Ater talking to around
twenty people, hal o whom you don`t
know that well, it`s bound to make anyone
cry ,well, almost all o us managed to keep
their composure, so that`s a relie,. But
admittedly, it was a good exercise, since
you rarely get the chance to praise
someone not reporting to you. Plus, it
makes you all warm and uzzy on the
inside, until your next work deadline.

I hae to say, despite our initial
reserations, that it was a resounding
success. I`e been to similar actiities with
preious employers, and such exercises do
hae merit in terms o bonding ,which is,
ater all, based on shared experiences, and
breaking the ice in the oice. But
expecting eeryone to be all cooperatie
and supportie is nae, and the
acilitators are quick to point out that the
team building workshop is not the end all.
1he philosophy and policies set by the
company ounders and top managers, in
the end, orm the basis o corporate
culture, including how employees work
with one another as a team and pursue
their objecties.

So sure, send your team or a good ol`
team building exercise. It may not sole all
your company`s problems, but it`s always
un to sometimes make a ool o yoursel
and see the guy rom marketing or
accounting dangling in the air. And or
that, you just can`t help but soten up a bit
and eel you`re all in this together.