Teambuilding Activities

"Team building" (or "'teambuilding'") refers to the process of establishing and developing a greater sense of collaboration and trust between team members. Interactive exercises, team assessments, and group discussions enable groups to cultivate this greater sense of teamwork. Team building is used in many contexts, for example in sport clubs and work organizations. (Wikipedia)

Unfortunately, this term is often heavily abused. I went to an annual conference this month in which one of the activities was "teambuilding activities" -- which turn out to be more like "how to humiliate your team member". The only teamwork required was choosing the next victim. What a mess. I can't believe the event organizer sold this as a teambuilding activities, and worse, the company let this crap happening.

Go through the followings teambuilding ingredients - those that seen as important to the successful set-up and launch of such team efforts.

• Selection of participants
• Establishing goals
• Allocation of roles within the team
• Harmonizing personality types
• Training on how to work together
• Support within the team
• Making effective use of resources
• Communication between team members and leaders

It's surely a lot of works! Event organizer: be sure do your homework and ample preparation.

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Traveling with bus and train

There are many alternatives for going to Singapore from KL (or vice versa). Flying is one. It takes only about 30-minute flight, but the total time might extend up to 3 hours. Another alternative is to drive. I would think this gives the most flexibility, but driving and parking in Singapore might be a hassle, I guess. The other two alternatives are going by bus or by train. I discount sea travel as it seems not interesting at all.

I went to Singapore by bus earlier this month. It was a double-decker bus from a company called Aeroline. Not as good as the pictures in their website, but the overall experience was satisfying. Passengers are seated upstairs, while downstairs is reserved for meeting - there's a meeting table with several chairs/sofa. Apparently, some people took advantage of the sofa and used it for bed instead of meeting.

Going back, I took the train, for the sake of getting new experience. Bad call. First of all, trains are more expensive than bus (there are many more companies similar to Aeroline or with lower quality) for the same quality, or even lower. Secondly, it took just too many stops along the way. The stop for immigration is also longer as there are more passenger than there are in the bus.

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