TI Team-building @ Taj Fisherman’s Cove

The dates have been getting postponed every week since the last one month. After all it is not easy having all 29 of us working in various projects, having different deadlines decide on a common date. A surprise meeting on a Tuesday afternoon and as we all huddled together in the conference room ruling out possibilities – and then the beans were spilled – Fisherman’s cove at The Taj. What about the costs – well of course the long list of pending treats can get cleared at one go!!

March 16th, 2006, 8.00 AM: The excitement was visible. People hustled to finish up their tasks in the first half of the day. No more coffee breaks, no chatting in the cubes. “Yes, we will finish before we leave”, was unequivocally communicated to all anxious onsite coordinators.

So on a sunny Chennai afternoon, some promising to come back and work – the Texans at Infosys went to chill out together. A twenty minute drive and we were all at the venue, all 28 of us. As we made our way to the open thatched huts called Machan, the greenish-blue Bay of Bengal in the distance and the cool breeze from the sea replacing the air-condition machine at office, we realized the venue couldn’t have been chosen better.

Fast forward 10 years from now and you meet a colleague, you vaguely remember his name – but you still remember that he was a voracious reader!! Yes, we all do remember the unique characteristics of our colleagues and acquaintances – that singularly makes life and work in teams so interesting. The first event, “Guess the personality” was to identify a person given his 3 characteristics. So, the game started and we all broke into groups. From chatterboxes to dancers, cooks to philatelists in our team, we identified them all.

Next we had an interesting brainstorming session on the “Time-wasters in office”. So all things we do on which we could save time while in office. The group that identifies the maximum will be the winner. Coffee breaks, newspaper reading, browsing, listening to music, chatting with colleagues to thinking what to fill in DART and onsite-offshore calls – we laughed and debated on the items but it was an eye opener for many of us to know one-fourth of a century of tasks were on the waste-of-time category.

By this time, the sun has almost descended from the sky and as the evening approached, we had snacks and tea/coffee. Photo session next, we all shot ourselves in front of the camera. The sea looked very inviting from the beach, so before long we removed our shoes, rolled up our trousers, some even changed to shorts and went running towards the sea. As the cool water lapped our feet, the mighty waves breaking over the sea-bed, we felt a surge of energy entering our body. We all got refreshed and energized.

In corporate life and projects, many a time we need to navigate through the unknowns – our colleagues might give us some pointers – some take us to our destination, some lead us astray. We physically replicated such a scenario called the Blind Treasure hunt (here a ball was the treasure). Dividing ourselves into small teams, we would have a person completely blindfolded and he would require finding a ball with directions from team-mates while other teams might try and distract him. So, the key was to be able to distinguish the right voice. Each team formed their own strategies and others formed strategies to defeat others. Teams shouted and screamed at the top of their voices, while the blindfolded person had a tough time recognizing the right voice and direction and getting the ball. It was hilarious and enjoyable.

Next, it was the balloon game. Well if you thought that balloons are for kids, think again. If you still don’t believe, read on. We all blew balloons to make sure that each member in the team has one. Some balloons flew away in the cool breeze on the beach, and there were athletes more able than our Indian Cricket Team, who caught them back for us. The balloons were tied to our legs and we were required to burst other person’s balloons. While the number of inflated balloons dwindled, the marked area was made smaller and smaller. There was lot of mayhem … and tons of fun!!

The evening had slipped by, without any one of us knowing that it was already 6.30 PM. But the team enthusiasm was still high and we next had a balloon race with balloons balanced at the side between team-mates. It taught us the fine balance one has to maintain while working in a team.

Finally, it was time for the Tug of War. The rope was laid down with a marker in the middle. And the commanders were chosen and the teams selected. At the blow of the whistle from the coordinator, the muscles flexed and the teams went on pulling and pulling. As one team was on the verge of winning, the second team pulled back hard and with a final tug, the marker reached the winning point. How true this is in our real life when even in the final moments of failure, one should strive and not give up!! A few more battles were fought on the same battleground including the one between 5 girls and 3 guys. Anybody’s guess who the winner was?

The dusk was beautifully laid for us on the beach. And we dropped down to relax and chat amongst us. Then a stroll around the beautiful Taj property and we reached our place for dinner. A tastefully decorated hall with chandeliers and mahogany-type archaic furniture - sumptuous and tasty dishes, topped with the icing on Black-forest cake. Now even our taste-buds were full and satisfied and we headed back.

As one of our team-members commented at the end regarding the party,” It was great, relaxing of the mind and I have come to know more about our team. I feel closer with the team than ever before.” We all hope we can have many more enjoyable project parties.