Objectives
Citra Sawit Lestari,a palm oil product and wholesale distribution company, were looking for a team activity that would develop a culture of collaboration between their plantation and factory employees.
Objectives in Brief
- Increase awareness of working as one team
- Increase productivity through teamwork
- Effective communication skills
- Awareness of individual strengths
Solution
On April 26 2019, 30 managers from both Citra Sawit Lestari’s plantation and factory headed to a two-day conference by land, air and sea to Tanjung Selor the capital of North Kalimantan province in Indonesia.
On the first day of the conference, participants were divided into groups and told their objective was to make an enormous Chain Reaction contraption that would flow continuously from simple machine to simple machine. Teams were supplied with a series of well-illustrated and described cards as a guide, and an enormous variety of objects.
Each team then designed and built a number of simple machines. They tested them again and again to ensure that they worked as desired. Then they joined their simple machine to the next simple machine and tested they flowed from one to the next.
Once all simple machines were joined to the next, they gathered round and set off their contraption! After 3 hours work, the machine flowed smoothly one to the next without intervention from the touch of a hand. Like A Rube Goldberg machine intentionally designed to perform a simple task in an indirect and over-complicated way the final action triggered a simple yet amazing final action.
There were cheers of joy from the participants as just like a Rube Goldberg machine it finally triggered a red and white flag to flutter signalling a successful end!
Outcome
The activity was an enormous success. Teams learned the importance of Big picture thinking, moving away from silo mentality.They realized that collaboration between the plantation and the mill in terms of shared knowledge and resources was imperative to their future success.Chain Reaction became a metaphor for how they must have a shared strategy and work on micro tasks with excellence to positively affect the overall common vision and goal of the company.
In the words of one participant:
"Very satisfied & very helpful. It really helped us with communication, coordination and our perceptions.In a word - OUTSTANDING "
