“Team Building” sessions are part and parcel to many company
offsites and one I attended in Coventry recently was no different. Forrest Gump’s
mother might have said, they’re just like a bunch of a chocolates, you’re never
sure what you’re going to get (I’ll try to refrain from more choc puns).
While these events are sold as enrichment exercises and an
opportunity to build bonds with colleagues in an informal environment, the
company hierarchy and competitive spirit to win is all too present.
And it’s always interesting to see the lengths company
employees will go to. Grown men and women reduced to running around after furry
coloured balls, internalised into handling a bamboo stick like it was a stick
of plutonium. Or my favourite to date, spending an hour working out the most
efficient way to touch an object and return to the same position, only to be told
that a group of school children were able to complete the same task in less
than half the time. The group exercise I took part in, was a little easier on
the ego though.
Freshtracks have
been running their ‘Chocolate Challenge” event since 1998. Originally developed
for the marketing team at Pepsi, it has since been used by several organisations
and was the basis of the final challenge for BBC’s The
Apprentice.
Prior to the exercise we were split into groups. Senior management,
including one esteemed member who had worked for a couple of high profile
confectionary companies were strategically placed in various teams. Every team
except ours, who consisted of, dare I say it, ‘the little people’. A couple of
respected procurement managers, an operational sourcing expert, accounting
professional and yours truly (Mr Knowledge as I’m increasingly referred to these days). We
made our introductions and sat down to hear the Freshtracks facilitator’s
presentation.
To begin, thr ee of
the most successful chocolate campaigns of the past thr ee
decades were shown. The After Eight, Milk Tray and Ferrero Rocher commercials
brought back memories of my childhood and the cold war, although younger
members of the team clearly had no such emotional attachment to them.
1) Create
an original box of chocolates – As teams we were tasked to create and make a
unique, never-been-tasted before chocolate experience
2) Present
a product or marketing strategy – We were told to write and present a marketing
strategy that would explain how we would promote our chocolates to a desired
sector with an appropriate brand name and profit margin.
3) Deliver
a 30 second TV commercial – Each team was commissioned with writing and performing
a television commercial that would support the marketing strategy. If the commercial
ran over 30 seconds, points could be deducted. The finished advert would be
presented at the end of the session following a two minute product
presentation.
We were
told that we could use an unlimited amount of dark, milk or white chocolate to create
our product. We could add various ingredients (at a cost), from the fairly
cheap and humdrum marshmallows and rice crispies to the more exotic and
expensive crystallized ginger, chilli, nutmeg and coconut.
We sat down
as a team and got to work. It struck me how we should consider targeting our brand of chocolate for the more premium market. The main focus of all thr ee adverts was less about the chocolate and more
about the kind of lifestyle that could be associated with these chocolates.
A younger
member of the team was particularly enthused about contributing to the task.
Considering he is also a regular reader of this blog, I’m going to refer to him
with a pseudonym. “Bandy” a self proclaimed ideas man, got the ball rolling
with his “5-a-day” proposal. “There’s loads of different types of fruit we can
use. Let’s cover them in chocolate and boom! Job done!” he said clicking his
fingers.
While this wasn't a bad idea, it didn’t jump out as a task winner either. I
didn’t want to stifle Bandy’s gusto though. Another member of the team
mentioned that while it would be a new, never been released before concept,
there was probably a good reason for that! I took this as a cue to add a little
constructive diplomacy.
We should
definitely have this idea as a possibility, even if it could deliver a mixed
message. On the one hand we would be trying to promote the health benefits of
our product and on the other, smothering them in a high sugar and fat
substance. The group agreed and Bandy gracefully accepted this feedback. We
still had to come up with a concept though…
After 10
minutes of umming and aahing, I reminded the group that we had access to a
large range of ingredients, sourced from different regions of the world. How
about we create a ‘journey of chocolate’? Different regions of the world could dictate
their own influence on the ingredients and this as far as I could see would be
a truly unique concept. There was a collective agreement to go with this, but
we still had to think of a name.
My first
thoughts were ‘Coco-Republic’ except it could definitely be perceived as a
rip-off from the strong Coffee-Republic brand. I then put forward Coco-Nation.
Better perhaps, except in common with the majority, I felt it didn’t quite hit
the spot.
Maybe we
should be looking for terms from languages, other than English I figured. Another
team member suggested that we could use ‘Du Monde’ or ‘Of the World’ in French
somewhere in the name. “That’s it!” I said. “Coco Du Monde”. "How about simply Coco Monde?" said another
member of the team. A catchy, classy, elegant and expensive sounding name that would capture the essence of our concept perfectly.
We then
acquired a range of ingredients and packaging for Coco Monde that our accounting
professional had worked out at the cost of 49p. A healthy profit if we were to
market this chocolate as a luxury brand with our proposed RRP of £4.99.
I suggested
we split the choice of chocolates into Continents. South America could have the
whole Inca connection, where I remember hearing somewhere lay the origins of
chocolate. Dark chocolate, with chilli and cinnamon would be a nice
combination.
For Europe,
we could keep it simple and sophisticated. Milk chocolate with hazelnuts was
agreed to be the flavour of choice for this region.
For Africa,
often referred to as the home of civilisation our accounting professional
advised natural, earthy ingredients, such as crystallized ginger, honey and
dark chocolate as the foundation.
Then, as a group
we hit a collective mental block – we’d momentarily run out of good ideas.
Everyone
except Bandy. “How about we include Antarctica
and choose white chocolate and peppermint as a cool theme for that area!?”
Fantastic, we
thought. A procurement professional within the team recommended we create a
circular box, like an Aerial view of the world. Bandy was on a role, “yes and
lets carry that theme into the inside of the box too!” he said, “Depending on
what region of the world you choose, that would be the taste that you would
experience!”
Time was
running out and we hadn’t determined a target demographic and associated
promotional campaign.
I suggested
that this could simply be anyone who has an interest in travelling and the
group approved. “And as a promotion we could give away some golden tickets in
selected boxes where lucky winners could go on a world tour – Willy Wonka
style!” (By now you will have assumed who made that statement)
It was time
for the teams to present their ideas to the rest of the company and we were
first up.
Tasked with
doing the initial pitch and with zero rehearsal time being a factor, it
probably came across as pretty poor – even if I managed to get the basic
concept of all our hard work across. Bandy then took some samples around and
they were well received by the group as a whole. Our accounting professional
gave a breakdown of the costings, which all added up.
The final
part of the presentation was to deliver a 30 second commercial. Again, we had
left zero time for this area of the
task.
Inspiration (and courage) hit me. I asked Bandy (who by now I’d learned
was pretty fearless too) to fly past and mimic an aeroplane and then leave the
rest to me…
“You know…
I’d love to just pack up my bags and jump on a plane to somewhere exotic. What
with these difficult economic times it’s something that I can’t just do. Well
now I don’t have to leave my sitting room to enjoy some escapism. I can savour
the fiery, spicy passion of South America, the creamy sophistication of Europe,
the natural, gingery earthiness of Africa, and the soft, minty coolness of
Antarctica, encapsulated in a dark, white and milk chocolate experience all for
a recommended retail price of £4.99”
This
impromptu, freestyled speech seemed to go down well and it was time for our
team to sit back, relax and listen and score the rest of the groups offerings.
It’s fair
to say all the presentations were delivered more professionally than ours, with
the adverts better scripted and acted out. As slick as they were, it was also
fair to say that with the exception of our group, it was difficult to identify
any of the products being pitched as unique. The wider group and the
Freshtrack’s judges agreed. Coco Monde won the challenge and we were each
awarded a nice little book you see in the photo to the shock and awe of a few Senior Directors.
That’s a
sweet story, you may be thinking, but what has it got to do with KM?
Let me take
the group itself as an example. Unlike the others, there were no senior people
present. Not that that’s always a bad thing of course, however it meant that as
peers with no rank and essentially no hierarchy was established. A serious
purpose to win was helped by the informal environment – arguably the best type
for fostering innovation. Every contribution was also a valid contribution and
led to a free flow of ideas. Entirely the guidelines by how Knowledge Cafés are
run.
Like most
people trying to introduce a new concept into an organisation, you’re likely to
encounter some challenging questions - even from well wishers. So when a colleague
of mine (who was always a supporter of KM) expressed his concerns about KM
succeeding if a culture of individual success was encouraged over any kind of
team work, I didn’t have an answer. And not having one worried me for a while.
My boss
reminded me of why this should potentially never be a barrier to knowledge
sharing and collaboration. Before I could finish my sentence expressing my
worries he was nodding his head in disagreement. He convinced me that being a
winner, an entrepreneur, a leader and collaboration are part and parcel to each other. How Lewis Hamilton
and Jenson Button have a whole team of people behind them that have contributed to
their successes. Of course he was right. The crews of
engineers, designers and R&D scientists all play a part in a successful
podium position and are all, by rights – winners too.
The success
of our team wasn’t the result of one good idea by one person, but the
accumulation of ideas and workstreams created as a result of this. Ideas
were encouraged, a unique concept discovered, then developed and built upon by
different members of the team, all contributing to the same goal.
So perhaps
the biggest lesson to me is how the Chocolate Challenge reinforced what someone
once told me “A team can be perfect where an individual cannot”. As much as you
need your project managers, process people and techie's, you equally need
your motivators, academics and Bandy’s too. I first heard Chr is Collison use this phr ase
and I unequivocally agree. In the end "all of us know more than any of us".
*
NB. Chocopedia was the name Cadbury’s used for their international
collaboration tool. As a Knowledge worker It seems
almost criminal to take credit for other peoples phr ases!
