Teamwork and Trust in Vietnam

The course is called Mandatory Leader Training Workshop.

I tried to wriggle out of it the day before but was told very bluntly by HR: "Cannot Anthony - it's mandatory."

Fast forward to 8am this morning at the Hanoi International.

I find my misspelt name on a card on a round table in the Ho Chi Minh conference room on the third floor. 

It is 8.30 when our instructor introduces himself as Larry. He is a lovely American guy who has worked in the company for 25 years and is from Rhode Island and is happy to be in Vietnam. His shoes are old and scuffed, a sure sign that we only use him for in-house courses these days.

I was thrilled at the prospect of a decent morning tea, a lavish lunch buffet and little else.

Larry outlined the day's agenda and I realised that I’d attended this (exact same) course about 5 years ago. It was going to be a long day.

Exercise 1: The ice breaker

The opening ice-breaker exercise was exactly the same as 5 years ago.

Larry: “Write down the name of a leader you admire on a piece of paper and which qualities ..."

[…]

Exercises 2 and 3, on the other hand, were less familiar.

Exercise 2: Team work

Larry forced us to stand in a circle and count from 1 to 18.

Odd numbers were sent to one side and evens on the other, forming 2 teams.

4 foreigners had wound up in Team A. I was the only potato on Team B and looked enormous as I stood there there next to my peers.

I'm starting to get used to this feeling of being that conspicuous white guy ...  like when I'm squashed into a lift with 24 people at shoulder height ... or when I bang my head on umbrellas covering street stands and their owners laugh openly at my misfortune.

Larry marched us to the back of the room and marshalled each team under a of A4 paper already hanging from the ceiling.

I stood there towering over my peers while we received our instructions.

He started explaining the rules and I stopped listening, distracted by the ugly vertical blinds handing over the windows and wondering if their twin was still hanging in my childhood bedroom.

This daydream was interrupted by my team poking me and handing me a pen. One of them smiled as she said to me "We write our names on it so you help us with the paper!".

I reached up and pulled down the paper from the ceiling in a single, fluid motion. I handed it to her. and my team groaned. Her smile had turned into an icy scowl as she withdrew her hand quicky, as if I was riddled with Ebola. 

Larry turned around and also frowned at me holding the A4 page.

It turns out the game requires one to keep the paper up there and use team work to get each person to write their name on a square. The first team to finish, without tearing the paper, would win.

The game was suspended and everyone had to wait a few minutes, glaring at the stupid white person who had ruined the game as he hunted for more A4, reholed it, restrung it and rehung it.

"Three ... two ... one ... go."

It was Team A vs Team B.

I quickly reached up and wrote my name in the top box, carefully handing my pen to the guy next to me. He couldn't reach. He handed it to a girl in jeans. She jumped up but couldn't quite manage it, either. A couple of others tried and failed and the clock was against us.

This time I was so focused on the paper that I didn't realise my team slowly gathering around me with hungry eyes, like cannibals at Christmas.

Within seconds I was forced down onto all fours as my team mates climbed up onto me in quick succession and I felt like a mistreated horse.

Arms and elbows pressed into my back and I groaned as palms pressed hard into my hips, no doubt for leverage as they hoisted up one of their more nervous team mates.

Our final competitor jumped on me and stood on tippy toes as she wrote. I felt a disc being slowly dislodged and realized that by now they had now forgotten I was an animal at all, much less human. I had become a fully functioning bridge. 

Her team eased her back down and her knees dug into my shoulder blades and they bounced her off to cheers and high-fives.

Our team rushed to the front of the room with the paper abandoning me there on all fours without explanation. I figured out that it must now be over and I sprang up as quickly as possible, lest they should return to mount me for a victory lap.

Lesson learned: Get the most out of your potato when you can. Once he drops, leave him there. There are plenty more potatoes in the patch.

Exercise 3: Building Trust in the Workplace

After lunch we were divided into the same 2 teams.

For this exercise I was listening carefully for the instructions (fool me once).

There were 2 tables set up at the back of the room and we were told they were our makeshift cliffs. This was the one where you fall back and trust your team to catch you.

The 3 biggest potatoes (me included) were singled out and told we were not allowed to fully participate.

A girl in my group who hadn't been paying attention until that point suddenly cottoned onto this and automatically pointed at me with a "We're not catching him! Not possible!" and cackled loudly.

"I'm right here," I thought to myself as I looked down and said "No. I am not allowed to jump", like that pale child on sports day who is allergic to everything and carries a note from his parents.

So off we marched to the tables.

Larry hadn't given us any guidance and told us we had to work out the system for ourselves. Our team formed a disorganised kerfuffle as we debated the safest way to catch someone.

Most in our team were relatively small so it wasn't going to be a huge challenge. However, they still looked nervous as they nominated me to be one of the primary catchers. (Vietnamese people don't seem to like putting their fate in the hands of foreigners - funny that.)

After a bit of argy-bargy one of the guys in our group who had been very reluctant to climb up onto Old Clover in the previous exercise was suddenly full of stream. He volunteered to go first, obviously pumped from our victory this morning.

He was also one of the smallest in our group and we were happy to start with him. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and nodded his head sharply, like a nerd pumping himself up before a date with a whore.

The rest formed a loose huddle as we debated the logistics (palms up? wrist grabs? lattice?).

Team A was a bit more organized (and competitive). We were still getting into position and discussing our process when we noticed their first member dropping back into safe hands, to cheers and congratulations.

We stopped to work out at how they had done it. Ahhh - palms up! OK good! ... that looks to be the safest way! ... and we turned to each other and lock in that approach.

Then it happened.

I heard a brief WHOOSH and a GASP. Then a THUD.

During the earlier debate and discussion, our first candidate had climbed up on the table and gotten himself into position. This is the nervous guy who never usually goes first and I imagine him biting his bottom lip as he worked up the courage to raise his arms up in a commitment to team and trust. He must have been a bit apprehensive and inside his own head until - prompted by hurrahs of the other team's first dropper – decided it was now time.

No one in our team - no one - had broken his fall.

We looked down at him in shock.

He looked up at us in shock. He lay on the ground, shaking, with his arms still above his head in a now-ironic symbol of trust.

We tried to pick him off the floor to help him stand, but his legs gave way and it seemed like he needed to sit a while longer.

He eventually found his land legs and we hoisted him out to the muffin room.

Our trust exercise was abandoned and a doctor was called.

I had mixed emotions as I sat with him on the sofa ("If only I had jumped first ... it could have been me out here asking for painkillers and muffins.")

About 10 minutes later the doctor arrived and a stunned Larry returned to the room to robotically launch into his wrap up.

Larry: "So. Umm. Team 1. Who went first in your team?"

-- "I did."

Larry: "How did you feel at that point Minh?"

--"It felt fantastic actually."

Larry: "That's great. It really demonstrates the importance of teaming and trust."

Larry, on autopilot: "And team 2? How did ... oh ... That's right. Didn't go so well."

Throughout the afternoon this scene replayed itself in my mind and I spontaneously giggled until, like a kid in church, trying to hide it by forcing my face into a look of squinting concentration.

Lesson learned: Look before you leap.