The Three Islands

'The Three Islands' is a nice little game that was part of the 'Bind Unwind' team building exercise we had last week. The concept of the game was simple. A group of 30 odd people were split into three teams and were made to move to circles that were drawn on three ends of a small grassy area. Apparently as part of the game these circles were designated as islands and out of which two were sinking. The rest of the ground was supposed to be water. The three teams were then deliberately deprived some essential physical faculties. One team was totally blind folded, my team was deprived of any chance to speak (the dumb team) and the third team's members had their legs tied. Now the blind team was given small pieces of sponge which were the props that can be used to cross over to the island that will not sink. The blind team and our team(the dumb team) were secretly told that our islands were sinking. The lame team was only told that two islands were sinking, so they were not sure if their island was sinking. The whole group was then given one hour to get ourselves transported to the island that is not sinking. Sounds simple right. But what happened over the next one hour unraveled some really striking management fundae. Actually the fact that I was part of the dumb team helped me observe things much better. Ok, so here is what happened.

As would any logical team do, the lame team shouted out to the blind team and asked them if their island was sinking. The blinds said yes and we the dumbos were listening. Then the lames turned over and asked the dumbos if their island was sinking and the dumbos nodded "Yes". But the interesting thing is the blind guys could not see this and so they were not sure which other island was sinking. So now the lame team knew that they were in safe harbor and realized that only they can help the whole group achieve the team goal of getting rescued from sinking. So they called out the blind team to get one of them come over to the lame island placing the props sequentially and get saved. Then one of the lames can limp over to the dumb island and then the dumbos will get the rest of the blind guys saved.

Here is when an interesting twist happened. The blind team got a feeling that the lame guys were probably trying to deceive them. They started asking why the lame team wanted to help them when their own island was not sinking !!! What the heck can the lame guys answer for this??? The seeds of distrust were sown and the blind guys decided to come to the dumb island which was an impossible task based on the arrangement of the islands. We dumbers were totally at loss as we could not do anything to make the situation better. The one hour elapsed and the blind guys could manage nothing and essentially the entire group lost the game.

Thinking back on the game I could relate it precisely to any organisational set up. The blind guys were like the top management. They had what it needs to save the entire group(the props) but they were blinded from reality and had distrust running in their blood. The dumb team (which I was part of) was like the worker class. They have no voice and can do nothing to change the world. The lame team meanwhile is like the middle management of an organisation. They can see what is happening and can advise the top management what to do but they still are tied to their feet and can't really drive the change. They want to save the organisation but don't have the power to do. What a sad situation...

I was really amazed at how a simple game like this can teach such profound lessons. I'm really thankful to the alums and the external org. that helped in this team building session. Way to go ISB !