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When Medi USA was booking its national sales meeting at Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the knowledgeable staff at the Inn passed along a recommendation that would become the highlight of their annual sales meeting. The team at Carolina Inn recommended the services of Odyssey Teams, a national teambuilding company that has partnered with Destination Hotels & Resorts to deliver innovative meeting experiences that mix corporate training and philanthropy in powerful ways.
Medi USA took the recommendation and participated in an Odyssey Teams program called Helping Hands. In an odd twist of fate, the employees of a company that sells prosthetic limbs and joints were building prosthetic limbs for amputees in third-world countries. The national Medi USA sales force had been through many team-building exercises, but they had never experienced one like this.
“In all our other team-building sessions, the program and outcomes were obvious,” said Sanaz Alagha, marketing manager for the Medi USA. “During Helping Hands, there was a buildup, but you did not know what it was building to.”
The 55 sales professionals gathered around tables at the Carolina Inn and worked in teams, while blindfolded, assembling a set of springs, screws and plastic parts. With no idea what they were producing – and being forced to work collaboratively by feel – the teams had to rely on teamwork and communication to achieve their goal.
The challenge of assembling the prosthetic limb forced the sales professionals — who tend to be Type-A, take-charge personalities — to think of the most effective way to work in unison. The exercise changed many of the employees’ outlooks on teamwork and collaboration, said Alagha.
“You have to collaborate with each other and you don’t see where all this goes, until the very end, when it all comes together and there is this ‘Aha!’ moment,” said Alagha. “It made you be patient, recognize others’ strengths and listen to others.”
At the end of the Helping Hands program, participants realized what they had assembled — a prosthetic hand that will change the life of an amputee in a developing country like Haiti, Thailand or Peru. The prosthetic hands were packaged into personalized bags covered with messages from the participants who built the hands. The connection between teamwork and a life-changing outcome for a person in need is cemented in the minds of the group.
Alagha said that Medi USA’s sales team, which was initially skeptical of the unique team-building exercise, walked away deeply moved by the experience and much more aware of the powerful impact that teamwork, collaboration and caring can have in the workplace.
“I don’t know one person who walked way from that thinking it was not worthwhile,” said Alagha. “As sales people you are so used to being an ‘island of me’ and through Helping Hands we realized that we can collaborate with people and truly make a difference in someone’s life.”
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