The Search for The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine: An Organizational Development Tool

• teamwork and communications• inter-team collaboration• strategic planning and resource management• organizational alignment to shared goals• leadership and support and other aspects of team play and motivation

The focus can be on:

Our Goals:

• Work Together• Get to the Mine• • Mine as much Gold Mine as much Gold as We Canas We Can• Return to Apache Junction• Have Fun!

Our Goals:

• Work Together• Get to the Mine• • Mine as much Gold Mine as much Gold as We Canas We Can• Return to Apache Junction• Have Fun!

Note the “We” – most teams miss that and frame it: “My Team, My, Team, My Team” instead of overall collaboration with the Big WE!

A sense of competition and the natural competitiveness commonly caused by the “My Team, My Team, My Team” focus measurably sub-optimizes the group performance results. Collaboration rather than competition is a key factor for success.

Our expressed goal is to mine as much gold as WE can and to have fun while doing it! We also want to have a very positive experience to debrief so that we can discuss alternatives for improvement. THAT is the goal of playing this exercise.

The Goal is to mine as much Gold as We Can!

The play of the game is our anchor point for serious discussions about the choices we make and the issues of communication and teamwork.

Collaboration offers much higher payouts than competition, but players often choose to try to win rather than optimize overall results.

This allows for great debriefing!

Our debriefing questions focus on such themes as the following:(Note: We also use cartoons as visual anchors to key actions and the fast play of the game allows for lots of tabletop and group discussions about choices made and real alternatives in the workplace.)

The game generates some amount of discord and disagreement as to what are the best decisions.

Not everyone agreed and it was important for the team to reach a consensus about what to do, where to go, what to take and how much risk should be managed. Disagreement is good if it insures that we have looked at things from a variety of perspectives.

And reaching agreement and making good decisions is what will generate better teamwork, planning and results.

And we NEED agreement! We need everyone on board and feeling that their ideas have been considered. Once we got agreement, teams could focus on getting things done: planning, trading, and executing. AGREEMENT MEANS SHARED OWNERSHIP AND ENGAGEMENT.

Things didn’t necessarily work smoothly. There was lots of “mud” on our journey that made team progress difficult. Journeys never seem to be easy, but talking about issues and opportunities is a key to improvement.

And there could be a lot of pressure on team leadership for getting things done more, better, and faster…

Employee engagement is anexperience to be lived

not a problem to be solved.

It’s really neat, getting to the Top, one wonders if success will ever stop.Collaboration is one real great key as is planning things, it seems to me.

We see the goal, we see the top. What pushes us to never stop?

We can easily talk about Motivation and Success

We can readily talk about organizational alignment and the need to have shared goals and objectives.

All of the teams could have chosen to work together.

But remember, “My Team. My Team, My Team” and that particular dynamic mentioned earlier…

We hear teams talk about They.

And we hear teams talk about THEM:

So, what we talk about is that They and Them are really US, and that teamwork and collaboration offer benefits.

We could have then worked together to execute the One Best Plan.

After all, this was NOT a race; we just had time limits. Our goal was to Mine as much Gold as WE Can. We wanted to optimize our results, but we did not mine all we could have…

But, Nah! And Yeeee Haaaaa! Let’s Get ‘er DONE and just have some Fun!

So many teams just took off flying toward The Mine.

And it WAS Fun!

Chaos.Confusion.Reality!

So, after the play has ended and the gold has been mined, we have the chance to sit by the fire and chat about what we could have done, what we should have done and what we might choose to do now that we are heading back to the workplace…

Heck, we might even notice some NEW possibilities for what we can choose to do!

Here are some key slides

representing possibilities for discussions...

What did youlearn from

yourexperience?

Let’s have a Yeeee

Haaaaa!!After all, we were here to have fun and learn something!

What kindsof Mud

must wedeal with?

Expedition Leaderscan help teams

be more successful.

Why don’t teamsask for

assistance?

What can we do to better

align our teams to our

goals?

What can we What can we change to allow for change to allow for

better better collaboration collaboration

within our within our organization(s)?organization(s)?

Benefits ofCollaboratingare obvious.

Why do teamscompete?

In a flash In a flash flood, each flood, each

raindrop will raindrop will claim its claim its

innocence.innocence.

Why areClear Goalsneeded foreffective

leadership?

If the focusis on survival,

can one reallyfocus on success?

Competition:

An Issue of Balance.

It’s ALL About

Teamwork and Mining

Gold!

What mightI consider

doingdifferently?

It is all about choice and choices; we generate considered alternatives.

This was Remember:

But it is also a great learning and discussion experience!

only a game!

Have FUN Out There!

Thanks for your time, energy and thinking.

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