I (Janet) am currently in southern California enjoying my semi-retirement. I participated with my husband Jack in one of the Sunday afternoon fun activities and got an unexpected lesson in communication.
Who knew we would learn so much about communication while we were racing golf carts blindfolded. Don’t panic – only Jack was blindfolded, and I had to give directions to get us through the obstacle course. It was kind of like that game where you have someone direct you where to walk, except driving is much faster than walking. The course included driving beside a ravine, backing up into a tight spot and avoiding traffic cones and flags which lined the course.
We walked the course and discussed strategy, and while watching the first contestants, we changed (adapted) it a bit and we were ready. So, cool and calm we started out… Within 10 feet (3 meters) of the start, we ran over our first cone… turns out that driving blind, is harder than it looked. Off we went, I was cool and calm, and we made our first loop by the ravine without incident. I told Jack we were crossing into the second part of the course, and we made the turn smoothy. Next was the backing up part… I set it up so he could back straight up but forgot to put it into reverse for him… lost a couple of seconds. But completed the perfect back up with just a couple of course corrections… Yay – our strategy was working. Finished the next part of the course and we could feel the end coming … our time was good.
We were on the home stretch – Jack floored it… it was a straight section to the finish… but, straight if your wheels aren’t straight means going in the wrong direction… I started to yell directions – “my way… no right, my right” … crash / bang… down went a traffic cone… He over compensated and another went down. Jack didn’t slow down until I yelled “STOP! What the h*** are you doing?’ The spectators had a great time because this was right in front of them… an argument. We settled quickly and finished in proper form.
Panic (by me), rushing to the end (Jack) caused us a few penalties and lost our sure win. Worst of all, was the blame game that happened immediately after. Didn’t last long, but long enough. We started talking about went wrong calmly. It turns out that Jack didn’t hear the instructions about where we were on the course. He was focused on the next instruction. I kept changing how I said when to turn, right, left, my way, your way…
Is this what happens to you? When you get into a tough spot? Does your communication break down when your team is stressed? If Jack and I hadn’t been married for 50 years, there may have been some major trust issues after. It was important for us to debrief – in a factual manner to defuse the emotion. Most teams haven’t built that level of trust, and a few misspoken words and temper flareups can cause trust to be broken for a long time. Remember to debrief or hold a retrospective to help teams defuse those kinds of situations.
This little exercise was a great team building exercise to show how people’s language and communication change under stress.