For whom the balls toil
THREE BRIGHTLY coloured juggling balls may seem superfluous office accessories in a corporate world where managing deadlines, staff and maintaining company profits is hard enough.
But according to Team Building Asia, the simple circus tools can help keep businesses rolling by reducing employee stress, boosting cohesion and morale, and promoting learning.
'We focus on people - a company's greatest asset,' says David Simpson, Team Building Asia's co-founder and senior partner. 'Companies downsize and are left with a fragmented team. Juggling is a good way of bringing the team together quickly, and shows you can learn something new in a short time.'
A fresh approach in the rapidly growing team-building business, Team Building Asia's element of surprise gives it a definite advantage over stodgy, desk-bound programmes.
'When you tell clients they'll be juggling three balls in 45 minutes, you should see the looks on their faces,' says Simpson, with a smile. 'But within that time at least 90 per cent of the group can juggle.'
The secret? 'Focus on the throws,' says Simpson. 'Everyone thinks juggling is about catching rather than throwing.'
The programme grabs participants' attention from the start, with props such as a bag of rice and a handful of flat balloons making up the ingredients they need to make their own juggling balls.
At The Edge in Central, a motivational workshop for The Entrepreneur's Club is in progress, and it's not long before it's snowing juggling balls. Simpson says this is a good thing. 'Lots of dropping is good.
Often people won't try something in case they fail and their colleagues see, but this gives them confidence to try again, he says.
'Juggling is a skill most people don't possess, or have tried before and failed at,' Simpson says. 'The process of throwing balls, catching them and learning the pattern can transfer into anything: the next accounting programme or the new procedure for dealing with clients.'
Despite the pressure of performing in front of colleagues, the benefits of receiving positive feedback works as a visible confidence builder, he says. And at the same time, it physically and mentally brings the team together to share resources and knowledge, and strengthens team dynamics.
Simpson and his business partner, Stuart Harris, set up Team Building Asia in 2002 in response to the climate of low employee morale brought on by the economic downturn.
'Team building is my background,' says Simpson. 'I worked in a group in Northern Ireland integrating divided communities through team-building programmes, which is where I learnt to juggle. I thought this would work well in a business environment.'
With experience in corporate hospitality and event management, Harris bridges the gap between big top skills and high-powered head office personnel - and the results speak for themselves.
Doug Woodring, chief executive at Submedia Asia and a member of the Entrepreneurs Club, said the juggling class was a resounding success.
'It was a great workshop that really did prove to everyone that something can be achieved if they put their mind to it, and it relaxed all of us,' he says.
Simpson says the benefits of teaching people to juggle are long-term: 'When work pressure is too much, juggle. Juggling uses both sides of the brain, so taking 15 minutes out to juggle 100 times is a good workout for it.'
Team Building Asia carries out full-day, team-building programmes, incorporating various circus-based skills that can focus on motivation, multi-tasking, communication, problem-solving and leadership. And no one goes away empty-handed - a set of Team Building Asia juggling balls is included.
