People will sit in meeting rooms and do anything:
- strategy away days
- unconferences
- networking
- benchmarking
- building a shared story sessions
- communities of practice
- world cafes
- team building
Absolutely anything
- capacity building workshops
- consensus building
- work planning garland arranging
- Jar Jar Binks strategy sit-outs
- Fun time target challenges
- Facilitated Hooley ding dongs
- Big Time Charley 3D feedback
- Rassalian retreats
- Extended Knicky Knacky Noos
- Therapeutic base-touching
- Malian 6-Hats
- Lady Ga-Ga Market-places
Anything at all rather than set foot in their own workplace to learn what is happening and why.
thinkpurpose 
I get your point but I don’t think this is entirely fair given that the purpose of some of the tools you mention is to investigate what is happening in your workplace and build engagement. Sometimes you have to get out of the forest to see the trees. Gonna have to try the Jar Jar Binks Strategy Sit-out soon.
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HI, thanks for the comment!
The key thing for me is that people will readily, willingly, do all of the above but try and get them into the actual workplace and doing something useful….
It’s like those things seem fun, or probably non-threatening too. But the actual work, Christ no. Scary! Or something. Probably because it is quite real and there is no “flavour of the month” about it? They need to get over it, the workplace is EXCITING!.
T.P.
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Sparky, I think the while point of systems thinking is that you must never make the mistake of forgetting that it’s a forest, by looking too hard at the individual trees. The total value of a system, an organisation, a corporation, a forest or whatever, is not the sum of it’s part, it’s the product of how the parts interact.
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I’ve had some of my best times doing therapeutic base touching. It’s best with a close friend though can be also fun with strangers you’ve just met at parties. Even more so after your Knicky Knacky Noo’s been extended. So don’t knock it.
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You missed out geese-herding. Apparently “geese herding is becoming a very popular teambuilding activity” http://t.co/qst99qEv /via @andrewtghill. Absolutely anything AT ALL
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Holy cow!
Or rather goose. Yes, anything, anything AT ALL.
Hang on! Youre famous, didn’t you used to be Simon Caulkin?
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