FOL Day 4: Team Challenge of Epic Proportions

Our 4th day at Foundations of Leadership training at the GE Crotonville learning center, was all about team development. Most of us had learned about the Stages of Team Development; Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Concluding & Renewing, so the lesson was a refresher from when we last reviewed it in our college courses. We were then tasked with identifying where our team fell in the categories and why. My team decided we were in the Performing stage because we were team centered, we had fierce team loyalty (as evident in our cheering each other on during the team challenges), and we encouraged each other.

Jeff Burns is the director at the GE Crotonville training center. Jeff came to talk to us about developing our careers. Some words of advice that stuck with me were that we should aim towards being that "exceeds expectations" employee. He also proposed an interesting view of a successful career. When you to combine building your abilities, capturing what you want to learn, and meeting  the organizational needs, you will grow yourself as a leader.

The EPIC Challenge:

After lunch the teams were given a packet - and challenged with completing the tasks within the concealed packet in 3 hours. Ready, set, GO! The expressive side of all my team members came out and we ran to the break out room to start working immediately. As we are running I am opening the packet and listing off the things we had to complete:

"Ah-ha" moments of the week for all team members, networking worksheets for all team members, poster that represented our team, social styles map of our team, logo and advertisement for FOL, GRPI analysis of our team, an egg drop and commercial to sell the egg drop, poem about FOL, debrief worksheets of this exercise

Boy oh boy does time fly, but our team flowed through the activities smoothly. We each gravitated towards activities where we could utilize our skillsets and help the team. Our team was only 1 of a few teams that completed all the activities. One team in particular that did not finish all the activities explained how they really wanted to work together as a team on everything. It was interesting to see how different team view the tasks. Below, for your amusement, is the poem about FOL that I wrote:

Growing in GE
Here at Crotonville beginning our journeys
Who knew we would enter in so many tourneys
External focus we expand each day
Using knowledge of market industry along the way
Clear thinking we grow individually
Communicating complex information effectively
Imagination and Courage we embrace all the time
Advocating for change even if we mime
Inclusiveness we exude as a team
Proactively helping others with out a scream
Expertise we deepen throughout our jobs
Seeking opportunities to impact without being snobs
Foundations of Leadership a time we will miss
Most importantly Jim Swims was pure bliss

I hope you have been enjoying the updates about FOL. The final installment, FOL Day 5 will be posted soon! Stay tuned!