You Can Always Rely On The Classics
Rafting is one of the oldest and most well-known team building activities in the world. Teams have been building and racing rafts (and falling off them) for decades. Fortunately, the warm waters of Phuket make falling off rather pleasurable. I wouldn’t like to run this activity on a lake in Scotland, in winter, during a cold snap.
We were working with one of the world’s biggest tech companies – a brand familiar to businesses and households worldwide. Surprisingly, they weren’t all geeks and nerds – a stereotype that others (not me though!) perpetuate. In fact, they were very cool and, while I have no doubt that they’d be able to code in Python, Ruby and Swift while blindfolded, they were also pretty adept at tying knots.
Really, I’m not one for stereotypes.
In fact, the rafting was the ending to a wonderful Amazing Race, starting from the Hyatt Regency in Kamala. The client wanted plenty of beach team building and water-based activities. I thought rafting would be a great fit so we dusted off the life jackets and went paddling. After 3 hours in ridiculously hot and humid conditions, it was an activity that we were all looking forward to.
Rafting is a great team building activity as it forces teams to collaborate very quickly. In this case, more quickly than it would normally. As soon as we arrived at the beach, Phuket’s famous rain clouds appeared from behind the hills. They gave us just enough time to finish building our rafts and paddle to victory.
With the upcoming monsoon season, it might be the last bit of rafting we do for a while.