你和同事们相处融洽、合作愉快吗？企业为了营造公司良好的氛围，打造气势高昂的团队，积极地让高管人员参加各种鲜活而有趣的营地培训。

 

We hear a lot about team building these days. Team-building gurus are hired by some corporations to lecture us on how to work more effectively with each other. And they organise¹ awaydays - a time employees spend together away from their usual workplace.

 

Here in the UK, employees can take part in activities such as Zombie boot camps where military instructors² train you how to fight walking 'dead people'. For the brainier office workers amongst us there are crime investigations³ modelled on popular TV dramas like Sherlock Holmes and CSI.

 

Stressed-out city workers might have ukulele lessons made available to them. Why is that a good team-building exercise? Ukulele teacher Lorraine Bow says: "The fact that they can play a musical instrument within an hour is quite a fulfilling thing, really. It's not competitive – it's quite easy to do and a bit less intimidating⁴ than a guitar…"

 

Actually, a horse might be a bit more intimidating than an instrument. The animals are used by a company in Abu Dhabi which teaches leadership through horse training. Basically, you have to go in a yard with a horse and persuade it that you're the boss by using body language.

 

Kelly Eide, co-founder of True Leadership, says: "The horses don't care if your hair is purple, if you're a man or a woman, if you're old or young... It transcends⁵ all of those cultural boundaries – age, gender⁶, religion, tradition etc. – so that's a perfect fit. And in an organization where you really need groups of people to gel, who come from backgrounds which have no common norms, you can teach that most efficiently⁷ with a horse."

 

And the horse feels instinctively⁸ whether or not you are a natural leader. So if after you've done a good presentation your boss offers you a carrot, you'll know where he might have learnt it from.

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