Getting Oriented…
To a new city, a new project, a new client and of course a new team :)
This is the first time I was going to meet my fellow SAP Social Sabbatical colleagues. We are the chosen 12 from all of SAP globally to help accelerate social businesses and collaborate for sustainability with 4 client organisations in Jakarta. Although we had met each other virtually during the pre-work calls over six weeks, I was still skeptical about how I’m going to communicate freely and mingle socially with my colleagues who are from completely different backgrounds, ethnicities and experiences and how I’m going to work closely with them to deliver a high impact project. After all, we had colleagues from Germany, Israel, Brazil, Canada, USA, India, Italy, and Spain, across different job functions like Product and Solution Management, Product Development, Sales, HR, Project Management, etc. with experiences ranging from 8 years to 30 years — this is really as diverse as it gets!
We had an “Orientation session” planned for us by the SAP SoSa team and Pyxera Global on the day after everyone arrived — it was a Sunday morning. After a long flight and not-so-great sleep, not only was I tired, but I honestly also did not expect to establish an immediate camaraderie with my colleagues. But, I was surprised…and might I add…pleasantly! 😁
Architects and Engineers
Our first ice-breaker activity. We were divided into two groups each for “Architects” and “Engineers”, each with 3 participants. Each group of Architects had a “secret assignment” — a LEGO prototype 😊. In the next 15 mins spread across 4 rounds (each with 3 minutes for building and 1 minute for interaction with the engineers between each round), the group of architects has to help the group of engineers build an exact replica of the LEGO prototype without actually showing it to them. Between each round, there was only one representative from the Architects that can communicate with one representative from the Engineers. There were, of course, rules:
Architects/Engineers cannot show the prototype or the LEGO pieces to each other, cannot show photos/videos, cannot draw or write. The rules seemed impossible! You’ll know better if you can look at the LEGO prototype that we were assigned below 😂.
I was on the group of architects. Within a couple of minutes of getting started, I thought we were going to end up with nothing — I mean how can I expect my team of engineers to replicate a LEGO prototype just by understanding my words and gestures within a few minutes. This required, first of all, a clear sense of direction and communication from the architects so we know precisely what we can communicate in 60 secs to the engineers to best describe the prototype — so needless to say we had to be all aligned and on the same page. Similarly, the team of engineers need to be coordinated, willing to listen and take directions and process them within 3 mintues to come back with their observations and results to the architects (again using only words and gestures!)
At the end of our 15 minutes, it was now time for the Architects to reveal the actual prototype and for the engineers to reveal their creation. And Voila! We had an almost exact replica of the LEGO prototype! I just couldn’t believe it! We had never met each other before and were from completely diverse backgrounds and yet we were able to immediately collaborate, communicate and work under pressure 😉 to deliver what seemed impossible at the beginning…
After much thought, I did realise what made it possible though, was the fact that we had spent so much time on the pre-work calls, being “present” and mindfully “listening” to one another, that we never really found it hard to communicate or understand each other. It was also the fact that we were all highly committed and up for the game that helped us to shed any inhibitions and get on with the group almost instantly. 😊
After the ice breaker, we did proceed with getting ourselvelves oriented with the city and surroundings, the food and of course our project and clients. But, mostly, what amazed me was how easily we got oriented with each other!
In my next blog, I’ll share more about the project and the social enterprise that I’ll be working with. Stay tuned or follow me for more updates from my Social Sabbatical journey…
