From the desk of Teresa Jordan, Executive Director – Have you ever been asked to participate in an activity to which there is no right answer? For instance, at a very high level training event I had to participate on a scenario involving espionage, murder, adultery and cheating. The group was asked to rank the person for their level of virtue amid all of the wickedness.
The members of my little group poured over the task, as did all the others, only to find out in the end that the task had no answer key, no correct ranking. The exercise was just about getting us together and talking about weighty subjects so that we could learn about how we all think.
This week I had a similar experience about using the most obscure clues on the planet to try to determine who lived where and smoked what with what kind of pet. I sort of guessed that the exercise was more about thinking patterns and so I watched; as it turns out there was much to see.
Some people threw up their hands and said this is stupid, some dug right in with coloured pens and furrowed brow to crack the case, some worked very independently, others worked closely with their team, some asked for constant clues and some still haven’t stopped trying to work out the riddle. And the answer was … not one of those approaches was correct and none were wrong and in this scenario nobody got the right answer.
We just all tackle things differently; some use colours, some do not even write it out, some rail against injustice, others get right to work trying to solve, some are quiet, some loud, some joke, some fume and we all try.
I guess the point of this “fun” team activity – though in my opinion was a little short on fun – was to provide another platform for us as a team to learn that there is no one superior way to tackle troubles and challenges, they are all right. And if we can just let of our egos and our own well-worn habits and tendencies, leaning on the way others plan the attack will, in the end, lead to a much more robust outcome. If everyone saw things the same way and faced challenges identically there would very few actual solutions being reached – our unique strengths get better when complemented by the unique strengths of others no matter where they live and with which pet!
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