If you want to watch a re-broadcast of the 10/17/2019 webinar with CEO John Chen, click this video.
On September 17th at Training Magazine’s TechLearn conference, Geoteaming led the TechLearn Mission:Possible opening networking and team building program. The purpose of TechLearn’s Mission:Possible was networking and orienting the new participants for the TechLearn conference. Nothing’s worse than coming to large new conference and not knowing anybody, or not meeting anyone at all. In addition, every conference has different meeting rooms, so Mission:Possible’s goal was to orient everyone in a short period of time.
Geoteaming’s Mission:Possible utilized participants from Training Magazine’s Gamicon conference that just concluded. Using their 2 1/2 days of new knowledge, the Gamicon participants become leaders for each of the teams, furthering their learning.
Geoteaming took 30 minutes during the opening session to form people into teams, allow everyone to meet each other, tell them the goals and the rules and make sure the technology is working. In one of their most important team decisions, every team chose a team name and a team cheer. Geoteaming has seen that the team name and the team cheer can be a big predictor of team performance. Over 120 people and 16 teams competed for high score.
Then they’re off! Teams can complete up to 90 missions in just 45 minutes. Teams need to quickly create and execute strategies to score the most points in the limited time. They needed to navigate from the hotel to an offsite location where the closing reception would be held. Teams had a blast during this high-energy, high-tech scavenger hunt.
Out of 16 teams, Team 4 won! How did Team 4 Win TechLearn’s Mission:Possible? Well, here’s the secret of this event, it’s about the secrets of team performance. Covered by waivers, every team wears a GoPro and we can analyze what makes them a winning team and what coaching they could use to help their performance. This footage is fascinating and enlightening as I believe the key principles apply to our everyday teamwork. So how did Team 4 Win TechLearn’s Mission:Possible? It took 7 Team Tips for Team 4 to win:
Team Tip #1 Planning
Team Tip #2 Helping Others
Team Tip #3 Ask
Team Tip #4 In Sync
Team Tip #5 Huddle
Team Tip #6 Yes And…
Team Tip #7 Have Fun!
- Team Tip #1 Planning
- Planning is a key team skill we see with teams that win. Teams that even plan for 10% of the given time, in this event it would be 4 1/2 minutes, have much higher odds of winning.
- Team 4 started planning from the beginning.
- They started by looking through all the missions.
- Desiree prompts her team for the lyric missions. This planning is good use of time as they finished their team cheer early.
- Team 4 follows Desiree’s lyric plan for early points. Overheard from another team that planning before starting would be a good idea and then the team never did any planning.
- Team 4 did not have a complete plan but I’ll show you how they fixed that in an upcoming tip.
- Team Tip #2 Helping Others
- Helping others is a key team skill related to caring for each other and building trust. These small actions are seen in multiple winning teams and end up with big results.
- Team 4 start by having their camera person help a teammate with her app on her phone.
- Desiree shares her phone with another teammate to complete an I’m In mission
- Helping others includes playing with other teams as another team taunts Team 4 for fun.
- Team 4 has a team member watching the clock and evaluating distance to the end location
- Team 4 works together to complete a missions that requires 2 phones to complete
- A teammate helps Team 4 by pointing out the LeMeridien instagram handle.
- 4 minute time check, Team 4 has been constantly monitoring distance to make sure they can arrive on time.
- Team Tip #3 Ask – Ask Questions / Ask For Help / Ask For More Resources
- Do you immediately want to put yourself in the top 20% of all teams we’ve worked with? Ask questions. In fact, one of the strategies is to ask as many questions as possible before the game starts as you’ll usually unlock a key component of the game.
- Team 4 starts by asking questions about the GoPro and now you know why we put GoPros on all the teams.
- Desiree comes to me to ask a question. In over 2,000 events, in less than 20 events does someone ever ask me a question, even though I know the most about what is going on.
- From that question, Desiree clarifies she can complete all the I’m In missions and shouldn’t do any other missions as they would be rejected.
- By asking each other, Team 4 realizes they have more missions on floor 2 they can complete.
- Ask to use all of your resources. Team 4 is wisely using their map to locate the Commerce room. In many programs, teams forget they have a map or that they could ask for a map.
- Ask to gain more resources. Team 4 asks for help from the front desk who answers their question immediately. Asking shows that you have many more resources then the ones you think you have.
- Winning teams are not afraid to ask for anything. In this case, they ask a total stranger to help them out with this mission and they all have a good time!
- Team 4 asks if they have any more easy video mission opportunities. Do we have any more video missions? Yes, take a video executing your plan. We’re going to Barcadia!
- The camera person asks Team 4, “Do you see LeMeridien?” Why yes, Team 4 sees 180 points!
- Team Tip #4 In Sync
- Winning teams are In Sync. They each know their role, they know how to quickly work together, they are not stepping on each others roles or toes. You can see some teams get in sync as early as the team cheer!
- Team 4 shows a way to get the group in sync after failing to shoot the Team Cheer mission the first time
- Team 4 doesn’t have all the markers of a winning team cheer.
- In this early attempt, they don’t all start together, some are looking for others on what to do, but they do get the words right.
- By being in sync and working together, Team 4 is one of the first teams to complete the assignment and sit down.
- As Team 4 discovers new features like the augmented reality stickers, they get into sync quickly to finish the mission.
- Team 4 is really in sync at the Churchill A quote mission
- After completing the Leader Video, Team 4 is so in sync that they take the lead for the first time.
- Team 4 is In Sync as they are constantly talking and communicating with each other with no silent streaks
- In one of the most critical team moments for Team 4, the camera person makes a third attempt to complete the Dinah mission and Desiree asks to multi-task. This teammate appears frustrated. The team could fracture at this point as this teammate could stop playing or go in a different direction than the team.
- Which leads us to Team Tip #5 Huddle – Huddle When Stuck
- Top teams huddle when they are stuck, don’t know what the plan is or just need to re-confirm before moving on. Huddles are quick meetings, sometimes as short as a minute, which get the teams back in sync. In one past event, a nearly last place team stopped and had a huddle one fourth of the way through the event. They realized their plan was not working and together they agreed they wanted to win. They created a new plan and from this huddle, they went on to WIN their event! Huddles are powerful, no wonder NFL teams huddle constantly through their game.
- To prevent this team from fracturing from no plan, they huddle. During this huddle they decide on a plan to complete Boardwalk (200 points) and Jester (160 points) and pick up anything else on the way to the end point.
- Executing on this huddle rocketed Team 4 into 1st place again.
- This team had 2 short huddles and that was enough to keep team momentum and team morale high!
- Team Tip # 6 Yes And…
- Like Improv, we see that winning teams have a “Yes and…” culture. This means the team is ready to accept other people’s ideas and if they have a different opinion, they don’t say “No”, they say “Yes” to the person’s suggestion “and…” add on to it with their own idea. Teams that say “No” immediately train other teammates that their voice and ideas won’t be heard and they stop contributing, even if they have the winning idea. Check your current team and see if you have a “Yes and…” culture
- Team 4 starts to show the “Yes and…” culture by easily accepting the team cheer.
- Team 4 realizes that there are points at Jefferson and say “Yes and…” to scoring them now
- Team 4 shows shared leadership as the camera person finds an easier mission and takes over leadership of this mission.
- Team 4 finished Yes And.. by playing all the way until the end and completing 5 missions at the end worth 180 points that catapulted them into the final position of 1st place. Had they given up, they ended up only 120 points ahead of the 2nd place team.
- Team Tip #7 Have Fun
- Fun is a strategic team trait. Winning teams genuinely like being with each other. Winning teams have fun! In every event we review, winning teams are having fun, and you can clearly see that the losing teams are not. You can see from these clips that Team 4 is having a blast!
- Team 4 is having fun as they complete swimming at the pool mission.
- Team 4 is cracking up after completing the Churchill B mission
- Team 4 is laughing after being runway models at LeMerdien
- So what did they shoot for their Team Goal mission? “We had fun!”
So these are the 7 Team Tips that allowed Team 4 to win TechLearn’s Mission:Possible. These are 7 of the exact same tips we have seen in over 2,000 team building programs and we believe the successful execution of these tips can drastically help your team performance. Top athletes use video analysis, top speakers use video analysis and now top teams can use video analysis. If want to increase the performance of your team, ask Geoteaming today for an evaluation.
What about the goals for the event? The orientation and networking goals were achieved. All participants were able to quickly locate any of the TechLearn meeting rooms. Many people networked together. In fact, in the closing session, I sensed that a table had something going on so I sat with them. It turned out to be one of the top performing teams. They said that they had kept together throughout the WHOLE conference! They went to different breakouts and always met up in between session and they also met up at every lunch and dinner on their own. They all said it transformed their conference as they were able to debrief, learn from each other, and make sure to attend top breakouts. They said they were going to keep together after the conference.
What a great opening networking and team building event we had at Training Magazine’s TechLearn Mission:Possible. Let’s hear what other’s had to say.
“This was my favorite event of the conference. Thank you so much for your hard work to make it possible. I’m hoping to work on something like this for a new hire program at my company. Absolutely loved it!!!” – Andrea Wright, CTT+
“This was a cool activity, I really enjoyed it!” – Tom Jones from Team Cloud 9 that stayed together during the entire conference.
Attendees said:
“It really builds momentum when you have that openness!”
“Thanks John, super interesting.”
“This was very interesting to watch. Thank you for offering this after the fact analysis.”
“I like that you have data on where teams are successful and break out!”
“Thank you John. This was fascinating!”
If you want to learn more about team building for conferences or team video analysis, contact Geoteaming today!
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