Known to the medical wilderness that is womankind as ‘merely a cold'. You can imagine the copious levels of sympathy I've had to endure. 

‘Man Flu...  He was a famous Chinese pilot wasn't he? 

Have you been to the doctor's? 

Have you taken any paracetamol?'

‘Not yet love' 

‘Well shut it then and get those bins out you steaming great wuffter!'

Now, I'm not one for drama; but dosed up on laudanum I loaded my revolver, tuned up the Stradivarius, and retiring to my chambers awaited the inevitable onset......of death.

Yes, I'm having a day off work, a most unusual sensation. Naturally one attempts day time television, but unless you're interested in Will Young, how to avoid the embarrassment of a collapsed soufflé, or a new brand of inconto-pants, you'll find little comfort there. I soon longed for the daytime television of our childhood, the test card: remember that smiling girl and her clown, happily playing noughts and crosses....the laudanum it seems, is taking hold. Slipping in and out of consciousness, I was soon marooned in an imaginary hilltop convent, where the sisters supported themselves by manufacturing lingerie. Two Mother Superiors, an egg whisk and a smouldering negligee later, it seemed less exhausting to think about business - and so for no reason, I stumbled across a subject I've never considered in the last twenty years - team building.

This is going to be a tough one - the early morning tea break at our place looks like a Muppets reunion - short of a blond pig we've got the lot - Sweetums, the Swedish Chef, Sam the Eagle, and of course Dr. Julius Strangepork - you know who you are.  How in the wild world of sports are you going to get that lot barking up the same hymn sheet?

Dragging my leg and drooling for effect, I passed my significant other en route to the telephone and called a team building company - why not, I've got another three hours to kill before I ask Carol to pick one from the bottom and two from the top. Pleasantries over, I suggested to the chap on the other end that presumably team building was a case of us all tramping off to the river with two poles, some rope and an oil drum. Once there we would re-enact a scene from Dad's Army, and build enough tension to result in a minibus punch up on the way home.

Apparently it's far less enjoyable than that - Team Builder Boy hit me with a list of to do's:

We need a group meeting to assess the changes we can make to improve our performance - contributions like ‘We'd all do much better if Frank wasn't such a knob' are not to be included.

We need to be sure the activity will achieve these changes - this means that if communication is the problem, anaesthetising your face with eight pints of snake bite is not the answer.

Can we find the time, budget and appropriate venue - obvious one - I may not be taking our lot on a Patagonian Pan Pipe Adventure.

Make sure there's no physical risk - I can't see where the amusement is in this. I managed to smuggle one of the lads into the navigator's seat in a world rally pre-stage testing run once - listening on the intercom to the screams and what sounded like a horse after a large Madras, remains one of my happiest work memories.

And all that's before he got onto the ‘psychological risks'!

Participants need to be treated equally with respect - no addressing The Great Gonzo as ‘Oi, Big Nose'.

There must be no potential to stir anger between members - if Miss Piggy comes onto you in the store cupboard, go with it, how bad can it be?

Anything that could expose a sense of failure must be avoided - don't ask Fozzie Bear to do any macramé.

And so it went on - would the activities build trust and openness; what was I going to do to instigate ‘buy in' from the team; and did I have a contingency plan for if anything went wrong... take the zip wire back to the car park sharpish and leg it before the Paramedics arrive?

My new friend then offered to email me a few examples of team building games that would ‘develop cohesiveness, tear down the walls in communication, provide avenues for discussion and increase productivity'.  I made a quick trip back to the dream convent to make sure they'd got the consignment of breezy bras out on time, and then sure enough a large parcel of game ideas dropped into my mailbox:

The Shoe Game - everyone takes their shoes off and puts them in a big pile on the floor - split into two groups and see which team can find their shoes and put them on first - sounds like a sure fire way to develop athlete's foot and a verruca, but what else have we got....

Trust Fall - one member stands in the middle of a tight circle of their work mates - falling randomly in any direction, they are caught and gently pushed back to the centre. Fifty quid says someone thinks it's funny to let Cheryl from accounts land on her teeth.

Sculpting - give your team a selection of art supplies and ask them to create a sculpture that best represents your management style - not quite sure what I'd want with fifteen phallic objects and some papier mache buttocks, but if you say so...

Minefield - create a series of obstacles in the room, blindfold a participant, and then it's up to the rest of the group to give directions and talk them through the minefield - sounds OK, if you don't mind spending time alone blindfolded, while the rest of the group sneak off to the pub.

There were plenty more but I gave up at ‘Human Letters' - divide into teams of four people. The organiser shouts out four letter words (seems open to corruption), and each group has to spell them out using their bodies! The most accurate and fastest wins - sounds disturbingly like throwing a few YMCA shapes in a bad 80's theme bar, and ending up with a female trucker trying to undo your belt with her good arm...actually, that's not fair, better leave our last year's office party out of it.

There must be something in team building, clearly, or there wouldn't be successful companies making wads of crinkle out of all this stuff, but I'm struggling to get the phrase ‘total pile of pony' out of my head. Maybe if you're a massive company where people only meet every Christmas to scrotal-copy their undercarriage and fax it to head office, maybe then it's needed to bring people together. But for most of us, isn't that what pubs were invented for?

Cheers,

Paul

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