How I recruited my colleagues for an obstacle race
Making sure your employees love to work in your agency is always very important. A healthy environment creates happy people and, more importantly, even more productive people. Therefore, team building should be an invisible, but constant part of your company.
I am generally a very active person. I have attended the Tough Mudder obstacle race twice already and shared this within the company. After completing my second race I talked to my colleague and we came up with a crazy idea to try and recruit some other folks and create a team for next year’s race. I got really excited but was very pessimistic at the same time as most of my colleagues thought Tough Mudder was something absolutely horrible.
From the idea to a realisation
The plan was to come up with a presentation. This would be shared within the company through our monthly 1st Friday meetings. It is a place where we can share literally anything, starting from company updates, knowledge sharing to personal experiences.
I really enjoyed talking to my colleagues about what this race actually means. It is not about finishing in a certain time or proving your physical capabilities. It is about much more:
- It is all about your team — you are in this together, as a team, and that means you will not let anybody down.
- Having fun and helping others — strangers can stop by and encourage you, help you to get through the obstacle or just jump in the mud with you, covered in mud from head to toes and still smiling.
- Your fitness level is not important — participants’ physical capabilities range from youngsters to elders. There is no excuse for not doing it.
White October mudders
The outcomes of this presentation were mind blowing for me. I did not expect anybody would want to do it! At the end of that day I had a team of 13 people already who were very excited (some of them scared too but still on board). And our team is still growing!
Big shout out goes to my colleague Sharon, who helped me out and also to our director Dave who made this possible!
In April 2017 we will stand at the start line singing “Highway to hell”. Together. As stronger team.
