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Discussion after you watch
Although they all follow up issues raised in the video, Warwick and Rogers' three discussion questions can be addressed independently, even if some points might be relevant to two or three of the questions. 
Choose the two questions that most interest you. In two separate comments, write one paragraph responding to each. In addition to stating and explaining your main idea, what personal knowledge or experiences might be relevant support? What examples can you give?
The three questions: choose two to respond to. 
- What personal attributes do you think would be brought out of participants during an escape room experience?
- Do you think teambuilding events are a worthwhile use of both the employee’s and the company’s time and money? Why / why not?
- To what extent are positive working relationships more important than other factors in the overall profitability of a business?
Planning and writing = 21:00 minutes
You have 21:00 minutes to plan and write a response to two of the three questions. I suggest you divide your time into two ten-minute chunks.
Remember: write two separate comments.
A helpful strategy
Avoid writing things like "question 3."
Instead, imagine you are writing for someone who has not read the question you are responding to. Your aim is to clearly communicate your response to that reader, so it might help to paraphrase the question at the start of your response to it. But it will typically be more effective to paraphrase (rewrite) ideas in questions as a statements.
Because our writing should make sense independently of the question it might be answering, this paraphrasing of questions to provide context is also a useful strategy in exams such as IELTS and TOEFL.
Reference
- Warwick, L. & Rogers, L. (2018). Skillful 4: Reading & Writing, Student's Book Pack (2nd. ed.). London: Macmillan Education
What personal attributes do you think would be brought out of participants during an escape room experience?
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, leadership, cooperation, and good problem-solving skills are essential attributes that help increase the chance of getting out of an escape room. With a good leader, the team is bound to succeed. When having someone responsible for deciding what to do after discussion can save a lot of time. Plus, a group of cooperative team members that agree to work toward an agreed task allows the team to move fast. Finally, the ability to solve a problem effectively is a basic attribute of solving an escape room which is a puzzle game.
I agree about the idea that you explain about attributes required to succed the escape room. Among these helpful attributes, I think cooperation is the most important one. As I heard from the video that the purpose of this activity is to enhance team working skills, its problem must be designed for using more than one individual skill to solve it in time.
DeleteI personally think that it is useful for both employees and their employers to spend companies’ time and money on team building activities as in many cases they help improve relationships between them which can increase productivities at work.
ReplyDeleteTo illustrate, it is common that in general workers must cooperate each other in workplaces. Therefore, in order to smooth work processes and maximize productivities, it is better and easier if they are encouraged to play a team building games to make them to be familiar with and know each other.
I think in the same way with you that team building activities can help maximize productivity for every companies. Both employees and employers can provide their best performance in work if the working environment is positive, encouraging. You can see many influential companies always have an relaxed meeting which sometimes is vacation annually, in order to develop good relationships among their staffs.
DeleteHi Good, I agree with you that investing times and money on teambuilding activities can provide benefits to companies. In my last company, my management used to arrange annual teambuilding events around the end of the year. The most enjoyable experience on such activity was when we went to Rayong for three days to spend times with our colleagues and the management. We used to play many activities and help each other solve problems through out fun games. Our groups consisted of the colleagues from different departments which I think it was a great time to get to know each others well.
DeleteEscape room experience need person who is active, endure, creative, and determination that could help solving the problem in the room. If one of your teammate gives up easily on the game, it means you loose one member that could pool out a good idea to find solutions. One person who gave up won't benefit allotted time for you. They are just passive member that are not useful.
ReplyDeleteThank you for mentioning determination and endurance. I agree that are essential attributes that will not only help a group of people to get out of an escape room but also solve any real-world problems. Keeping everyone participating actively and enjoying the journey might not be an easy task. Still, I am sure it will help the group solve a problem more effectively and allow everyone to have quality time together.
DeleteHowever, leadership, negotiation, and teamwork skills are equally important. In my view, it is also a group responsibility to keep everyone motivated and persuade a member who might already give up and seem to be not helpful. If we leave members who lost their motivation to continue without communicating or influencing them, it is not team-building but rather a team-breaking activity.
Thank you Pamin for pointing out about group responsibility issue here. I was competed unaware of it. Of course, I agree with your point that motivation attributable to group responsibility. It is an essential that individual should be motivated in the game. It is not only useful here in the escape room games, but it is also imperative acts when they are in the work field. Communication is vital skill help enriching unity and cooperation among teams.
DeleteAbout five years ago, My friend asked me to visit the escape room which was just opened in Siam that was when I first heard about the escape room . So, I searched for the place but I never visit there. I can imagine a bit of the situation that might happen in there, as one of my friend's personal attributes might be a leader who lead the entire group. My other friends might use all of their knowledges to solve the puzzles. For me, I am the one who might just cheer up and follow others.
ReplyDeleteAlthough some people don't see benefits of teambuilding events, I think these kinds of activities can worth enough for companies to invest their money and times, because they can help employees in different departments and roles work together better. My last company is a good example. My boss used to use teambuilding activities to allow their staff who work in different roles to get to know each other well.
ReplyDeleteI agree that teambuilding activities encourage people to work more smoothly when their jobs need to cooperation.
DeleteProviding this kind of benefits to employees is a good value for money.
Plus, I think that it would be great and very enjoyable if Thai firms adopt escape room games for their teambuilding events.
I've never experienced an escape room, so can only speculate on the personal attributes that players might display. Hopefully, cooperation would be brought out, since it seems unlikely that a team would be successful it they did not pool their skills to help the entire team solve the problems and escape. Those skills probably include other attributes that are needed if they are to escape in the allotted time: responsiveness to different types of clues is probably important. If I understand escape rooms correctly, physical attributes are unlikely be very important — strength, height, and so on don't seem to be significant for the team successfully solving the puzzles to escape. Watching the video, it also seemed that a willingness to listen to others, to consider different perceptions of puzzle and different strategies for solving it would be useful personal attributes for success. And being cheerful: even if you didn't escape in the allotted time, it could still be a worthwhile activity if you had a positive attitude towards it and the shared goals of your team.
ReplyDeleteHaving a positive attitude and being cheerful even when a team fails to escape are essential attributes. Although the team may not achieve the goal of getting out of the room, they most likely accomplish the purposes of a team-building event, which creates a better team to tackle a real-world problem.
DeleteTo add on physical attributes and an escape room. Indeed it is an essential attribute for a physical escape room. However, due to the COVID-19 situation, some countries have strictly limited the number of people who can gather together. Many people have been considered a "Virtual Escape Room" For example, it uses a website to host games and puzzles, the participants have to communicate via Zoom to solve them. In this case, physical attributes might not be as helpful as it is in a physical game.
I think team building events are worthwhile within a company because they make employees work as a team and maybe increase profit and productivity. For example, working as a team might promote smooth communication within the team, reducing conflict within the team, which leads to a faster process of working. Furthermore, more communication might make a team find their mistakes and fix its to be more productive in the process. So I think it is worthwhile for the company to have a teambuilding event.
ReplyDeleteI think that team building events are worthwhile use of both the employee’s and the company’s times and money in every fields. No one can disagree that most success in works can not run individually. For example, in medicine field, once you graduated a sub specialist board, you may not know well what outside your areas are. Consequently, consultations is a must to treat one patient with various issues effectively. That process require a lot of cooperation. This why teambuilding activities can sometimes be more important than knowledges and skills. For example, all medical schools has trip which allows every sub specialist residences and staffs to join annually. Its not an academic activity but relaxed vacation. The aim of this activity is to increase companionship among each specialists. Though it requires a lot of money to be held, everyone agrees it is worth ,and it is being continued every years.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you that the medical field needs a lot of cooperation. It reminds me of the experience of being in the ICU for two weeks. Back then, I got into a motorcycle accident. My injury is very serious. There are at least three doctors who take responsibility in my case. I realize that if there is a lack of communication between each doctor, I cannot be healed until I am me today. It also needs a lot of knowledge, skills, and, more importantly, cooperation.
DeleteAre teambuilding events are sensible way to spend time and money at work? I'm in two minds. Some of my own experiences of teambuilding events have not been positive, with participants going through the motions as required by supervisors, but wishing it would be over and that they (to be honest, we) could stop doing childish things and just work or at least share ideas in workshops focused on effective techniques. Perhaps some of us had brought the wrong set of personal attributes to the teambuilding exercise.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I've also attended workshops where teambuilding activities did achieve their purposes in a fun, often involving competition between teams. I'm certainly not an expert on this, but overall, I would say that for any organization that depends on cooperation between different individuals and groups within the organization, including educational organizations, it likely to benefit from strong teams whose members work well together, so provided the teambuilding is well planned, it is likely to be sound investment in both time and money. Unfortunately, not all teambuilding activities are well-planned to achieve the goal of stronger teams, but just waste time and money, while perhaps actually harming the effectiveness of the teams involved.
I agree with you at some point. For unplanned teambuilding activities are rather waste of money than bonding a relationship between workers. Another idea that would be interesting is field trips. This reminded me when I had a field trips with new members at the work place, it helped me know them better and our relationship develop faster. Having a night over with colleagues at resorts or relaxing environments would well mitigate unfamiliar feelings between us.
DeleteDuring escape room experiences a number of positive personal attributes can be brought out of employees. Teamwork and communication, is one of the obvious ones, since employees will have to work in teams and communicate with each other to solve the puzzle efficiently. Under the allotted time of the game resistance under pressure, is highly valued. Problem-solving, and decision making, and memory capacity is needed to solve and memorize all the codes and puzzles, while other escape rooms may require extreme focus of as an individual and team.
ReplyDeletePositive working environment including good relationships is the most crucial factors compared to other factors related to profitability of a company.
ReplyDeleteEvery productivity of businesses depends on workforces who are humans and have feelings. When they are in negative working environment, many of them who are competent tend to resign and move to a new firm where there is a better working atmosphere. This means that the companies let the most valuable assets out of their firms because they might care about other factors rather than good relationships in workplace.
Do you think teambuilding events are a worthwhile use of both the employee’s and the company’s time and money? Why / why not?
ReplyDeleteAlthough teambuilding events cost both time and money from the company, I strongly think it is essential and worthwhile for both the company and employees. To begin with, teambuilding events make chemistry within the team better and result in higher work productivity.
Moreover, teambuilding event promotes a positive working environment that prevents toxic workplace community and makes everyone feel safe at work. This allows employees to be able to fully focus on their work rather than keep worrying about their safety or whether someone will speak badly about them.
I think positive working relationships are more important than other factors in the overall profitability of a business, as I am sure that every successful businesses depend on happy staff who work together to achieve the goals of the companies. For example, I used to work in sale department where I used to lead a team of 10 sale reps to sell products to clients. In my experience, when they had a conflict or fright each other, they could not win sell deals.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the productivity of a process is mostly dependent on the feelings of employees. If employees feel stress, it might not be possible to get the best performance. In other words, employees feel pressured to be happy in the workplace, which might lead to more productivity. So, I think positive working relationships make employees feel happy and might make a company profitable.
ReplyDeleteHi Phum--your ideas here reminded me of my personal experience at my last company. As I used to work in the sale department, I would deal with problems such as how to be supportive to my sale teams, how to train them to think positive, how to train them to be kind and work as a team.
DeleteIt was worthy to support my team to help each other build positive and supportive relationship, because when they felt they were part of the team, they worked better.
DeleteI personally believe that the company's should include the teambuilding events because of several reasons. This can make people in a team getting to know each other more and also can give us a good memories. As I am working in a Thai company, my company do not have events these days in order to mitigate the cost. So, me and my friends create our own outing events which pay by ourselves and invite our colleagues in the company too. Every years, we have a trip to someone houses outside Bangkok, beaches or mountain. This time, we have activities together and getting to know more about each other which also effect the work progress.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. Teambuilding events can create special memories that makes the team closer and get to know each other. I also think that companies should include team building activities into their workplace as it could also enhance the company’s work environment. As you said it gives team members good memories, I think it can also build bridges and create a strong sense of a team between departments, which could strengthen the company’s network.
DeleteIn my opinion, I think that teambuilding events are worthwhile to both the company and employees’ time and money, because relationships between the employees is one of the most important factors for a company to succeed. These events better the teamwork and communication skills of employees, which are essential to prevent any conflict in the company. Moreover, it is more effective in team building than sitting in conference rooms, since these events urges employees to bring out their personal attributes and get to know each other’s attributes as well.
ReplyDeleteI advocate for your idea that teambuilding events are a useful tool for making good relationships amongst both workers as long as they are exciting or pleasure games/activities.
DeletePositive working relationships more important than other factors when the workplace have outside pressure such as time limited. Although there are workload for the employees, and company need to finish the job in allotted tight schedule. Positive relationship between employee are significantly benefit the working process and accelerate the change with fast pace under the pressure with unity among colleague.
ReplyDeleteProfits is the most important factors in every business. Its rely on many factors to get its best form. I think that postive working relationships is the most important one. Each companies require many units to run properly and sustainably such as employees and managers. Employees can have many different positions which differ each other. From that information, cooperation is must to achieve long term goals ,like big profits. For example, in private hospital, this model requires many units work together such as doctor, nurse, pharmacist, technician staff, etc. In order to make good profits, this model much provide the best services and performances to get huge preferences. As it requires various field of staffs to provide the services, cooperation is clearly believed to be the most important factor to achieve big profits.
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