In team building, O is for....? (plus competition!)

O...MG, there's so many! 

From Observing through Outstanding to Opinions, plus a few others too.

How can each of these help to develop a team into a baa-rilliantly collaborative and super successful one?

Each episode of our A-Z series of team building aims to help.

Expect plenty of analogies from the world of sheep and dogs from Head Shepherd & Founder of Raising the Baa, Chris Farnsworth, in these short and lively conversations with Paul Warriner, our Lead Facilitator.

Enjoy - and thank ewe for listening :-)

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COMPETITION TIME!

In the October draw we're giving away 3 of our highly sought-after sheepy re-usable mugs.  Help reduce waste and save yourself some money at many coffee shops too - what's not to like?

To enter simply answer this question:

How many tenets of team building, beginning with the letter O, are discussed in this episode?

Email your response to baa@raisingthebaa.com, with Sheep Dip in the subject box please.

The draw closes at 23.59 on the last day of each month (Oct - Dec 2022) and we'll email the winners the following working day.  One entry per episode. Open to UK residents only.

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FREE resource:
Sheep, Shepherd or Dog - which one are ewe? Take our personality quiz and find out.

Connect with the Speakers via LinkedIn:
Paul Warriner - The Recognition Coach and Lead Facilitator, Raising the Baa
Chris Farnsworth - Head Shepherd and Co-Founder, Raising the Baa

What are your main team challenges and desires? Maybe we can help?
Book in a 15-minute Exploratory Call now and let's see.

Transcript

Caroline (00:03):

Hello and welcome to Sheep Dip, the podcast from Raising the Baa. We're global leaders in team building with sheep at its core. I'm Caroline and together with my partner Chris, we co-founded this completely unique business. In this series of podcasts, we are bringing you the complete a-z of team building. It picks up on all the themes that have been fed back to us by our clients in their reviewing sessions, following their Raising the Baa programmes. And a few more topics of our own too. Expect plenty of shepherding references from Chris and he is in lively conversation with Paul Warriner, our Lead Facilitator. In this series, at the end of each episode, we are going to ask you a question. It'll be related to something discussed in the show. Keep your answers handy because each and every month we're giving away some Raising the Baa prizes. So wherever you're listening, you can enter. How to enter will be in the show notes. Enjoy the show.

Chris (01:02):

Hi Paul. How's things?

Paul (01:04):

Hi Chris. How're you doing?

Chris (01:05):

Really well. So we're talking O this time.

(01:09)
O, oh dear.

(01:10)
Oh dear. In fact, actually that is exactly it. When you see people come out to the countryside and you look at them and you go "oh dear". And I remember going for a walk once with some of the townies. So they got robed up and she brought her handbag with her and I was going, interesting. What have you got in your handbag that you'll need on the countryside walk? Well, my money, my phone... I said, you forget, you're in the countryside. There's nothing to buy. You're not going to go past anything. If you had a pen knife, some string, I would totally understand. But to take your handbag around, these are two very different worlds.

Paul (01:52):

I mean, what can you do with a phone in the countryside cos you, it's difficult to get a signal wherever you are. What we are showing though is our open-mindedness. The exercises that we do, being open minded, people arriving for the first time to a Raising the Baa event are sort of sometimes amused by what lays ahead of them from a team building exercise with sheep. You need an open mind. You just really don't know what's gonna happen. You can control and contribute to the outcome a lot of the way, but sometimes you really need an open mind to be able to take in what's going on around you. And I think that's important as a team member but also as a team leader, to be able to embrace all of the ideas that are come gushing forward.

Chris (02:40):

I think it's got to be the observation of what you see, how the sheep react. That is got to be, observation has got to be at the top of my list. All my job is about looking and observing. I have to look, observe and then to react. And taking on that observation, the detail is so important. The little things, if the sheep starts nodding its head, it means it's got a bad foot. You just look at the heads.

Paul (03:09):

Oh no, stop you there. Could you say that again?

Chris (03:12):

So when the sheep are walking, if it starts nodding its head up and down, it means it's got a bad foot.

Paul (03:19):

Okay.

Chris (03:20):

So that observation of actually seeing the sheep walking along and it ducking its head means it's because it's got a bad foot.

Paul (03:29):

I'm going to look out for that now. But you're right. I think the observation, there's the important, you know, in the exercise team constantly observing not just the sheep but observing each other for position, for where they are in the exercise for the outcome that they're looking for. All those sort of things. So it's invaluable and in any team, observation is important, but it's what you do with that information. That's also important, isn't it? As you've just said, recognising when a sheep is nodding its head when it's walking, it might have something wrong with its foot. It's what you do with that information. Because if you totally ignored that, that would be possibly to the detriment of the sheep and the flock. If we ignore what we see in business in what's going on in a team, if we ignore it, we just know where that's going to end up. Is somebody falling by the wayside potentially? Or it's what you do with that observation that's really important.

Chris (04:27):

I think it's all about the detail. Cos it's not just the sheep. It's not just the dog, it's got to be the people who are really stepping up, the people who have got more empathy, all of those people have got to step up, haven't they?

Paul (04:44):

You know, I think observation is such a big topic. In fact, you do start every exercise with that question. Health and safety , and risk on the day is all about the observations of where people are. And one of the key things that is taken into account is the environment that we're in. It's a brand new environment. It changes in front of your eyes when the weather changes, conditions change. If you don't observe these particular things, risks go up in various ways. But you do start that with the health and safety and that's down to observation. A lot of that is what works in the classroom or works in the office. Is it relevant? So it's a whole new environment and I don't know whether people actually see things or take notice of what they see. There's something, you can look at something, but do you really see it?

Chris (05:34):

I often get asked why sheep graze as a mob and it's because their eyes are set on the side of their head not in the front. And that just means that there is a mob. There's always other sheep observing, which means sitting in a mob, they will always get their back covered so that nothing's going to sneak up on them. So it's all about observation for them.

Paul (05:59):

That's preservation. Isn't that survival?

Chris (06:02):

Very much so when your life depends on it is, is it actually being observing a fox or a dog coming up at you? You want to have that head start straight away.

Paul (06:13):

So we've downgraded observation in our world to just glancing, you know, flicking through with a thumb on Instagram or Facebook, we have downgraded observation to just an incidental activity; where, what you're saying is in the sheep's life, it's everything, it's survival. If we don't look out for ourselves and look out for the environment, have a group approach to it then we're vulnerable. And I think bring that to the table and a team learning from that is that every single member of the team should be looking at not only its own environment, but those peripherals around it that they can see and are aware of and feed back that information. Because once again a sheep that sees a dog coming and does nothing, the flock are still in danger. Even though it's seen it, it's what you do with that information. Because they're going to bleat and run aren't they?

Chris (07:05):

They definitely put their head up and look with both eyes at the object. And by doing that, then somebody observes somebody's looking at something else. You know, it's the classic go up to a New York building, point at the skyline and then everybody looks up. It's that same thing. Wonder what he's looking at and that curiosity starts causing a great mayhem. And then you just walk off and everybody's standing looking at the top of a building thinking, I can't see anything, but I know somebody else saw something.

Paul (07:33):

That person's now walked off and left you standing there, staring up.

Caroline (07:38):

If you're enjoying listening to this podcast, we'd really appreciate your following us and rating Sheep Dip wherever it is that you tune in. And if you've got a burning question arising from today's show or you have a topic that you'd like to discuss in a bit more detail, then please email me caroline@raisingthebaa.com.

Paul (07:59):

One other other thing, a word with the letter O is outstanding. We see it in the exercises that we run: an outstanding result, outstanding behaviour, outstanding teamwork. And that is truly to be celebrated. And the teams that come on our exercise, they do celebrate that. And it's so uncommon to have an outstanding result within a space of time, like half a day or a day and a half, whatever they're doing on the particular exercise. But it's a great way to achieve that outstanding performance. Would you not agree?

Chris (08:38):

Oh, I tell you why, for the level of frustration there is when they see a professional work and the sheep end up in the pen in about three minutes. When they try it, that learning, all those combination of factors is definitely outstanding when they get the sheep in the pen themselves. That is really well worth a big celebration because it is such a big achievement.

Paul (09:07):

If they could bottle that particular experience and that particular feeling at the moment they've achieved that, and if that's what they could bottle and take it away, then that feeling would live with them for forever. Because many of the people participating in our events are doing it for the first time and that is the first experience with sheep or even sometimes out in the countryside. So it's a brand new exercise, there's so much to learn from that one feeling. We see it all the time and it's almost something that, uh, you should have a little red label on saying guaranteed an outstanding performance.

Chris (09:45):

A lot of people I think come out and think, well, they won't allow us to fail. And actually there is a big chance the sheep will not cooperate and go in that pen. It is a real achievement and it is outstanding when you can achieve it because it does mean you do have to do all those team building things, which is work together, have a plan, take it as shepherds for granted because we know the dog can do it. We know the dog can move quickly and control the sheep as well as we can. And that's really, it's the humility that the dog brings doing it and it will bust a gut to do it, which is really worth celebrating and actually praising the dog for doing such a good job.

Paul (10:36):

I think you just mentioned something there that was really quite interesting. You mentioned allowing them to fail. That's probably a topic that we could diversify on quickly. I think we do allow them to fail on multiple levels because they don't come straight out of the box and get the sheep into the pen. They fail on numerous occasions on a single element of the exercise. And I think it's that allowing them to fail and then rebuilding and retweaking their efforts and replanning and all those other things and reviewing what went on, that allowing them to fail is really important to the success that leads to that feeling. That we all get, to be honest with you, because we're embroiled in it, you know, we are equally on the day and in the moment equally as excited and committed to the process. But I think that allowing the failure to happen in a safe place allows people to make more of the success.

Chris (11:40):

Very much so. It is a great achievement. I do love it when they get the sheep in the pen. Sometimes when you get eight of the 10 sheep in the pen and then that disappointment or, do they regroup? Do they leave the eight in the pen to get the last two in? Or do they let them all out and get them all in again? So many options. Oh, options. That's a good one.

Paul (12:04):

Where did you get that one from?

Chris (12:06):

We all have options, don't we?

Paul (12:08):

And that goes on with observation that, when you come into this new environment, the options are endless. Even the choices you make, how you do the exercise, how you build the team, how you bond with the person next to you, how you support and help that person, even how you brainstorm. The options of doing that are endless. Shout them out, write them down, do them in a huddle, whatever works.

Chris (12:32):

Even the outrageous options are often such a creative way of changing the mindset.

Paul (12:39):

Whatever it takes to make your point across and have it embraced. And sometimes you just need to be a little bit outrageous. Often we're guided by opinions.

Chris (12:48):

Yes.

Paul (12:49):

Yes, often those opinions are based on something and is that opinion to be trusted and used as a guideline? or for example, somebody might say, I built a raft and this is what we did. Is that relevant to sheep herding? And you think, well I don't know. But taking on board other people's opinions is important. It's how you filter the information and the value from those opinions and how you embrace that and use it going forward. You can do that individually. It's a little bit harder to do it as a collective, as a team. And I think those that can, take opinions and views and attitudes and approaches as a recipe and blend them all together to come up with something that's going work in the moment is really very good. And you see that happen.

Chris (13:37):

Yeah, we do. Very much so. Paul, I love talking with you and unfortunately time's up, so we will speak next time. Great to have a chat with you. Cheers, Paul. Bye.

Paul (13:52):

Cheers.

Caroline (13:53):

Well, I hope you've enjoyed the show. Thank you so much for listening. Did you get the answer to the question? Keep it handy because at the end of each calendar month, we will be doing a draw of all the correct entries. Full details of how to enter are in the show notes. Till next time, have a baa-rilliant week. Bye.