Better Teambuilding Through Metaphors: Part II

This post is an update on last week's post about using organizational metaphors to enhance teambuilding.  In that post, I was wondering if using the metaphor or "story" that an organization lives by in a teambuilding session would enhance the effectiveness of the learning.

I think the answer is yes.

Here is the situation.  I was preparing a series of team effectiveness sessions for a healthcare team, and I put the work in the context of healthcare.  For example:

Healthy teams vs Unhealthy teams
The "symptoms" of unhealthy teams vs. the root causes.
Good communications habits as the "lifestyle changes" to improve team health.

The non-healthcare language for these same topics would have been:

Setting the right environment for team effectiveness.
Assessing the effectiveness of your own team - and identifying root causes.
Understanding the habits that create an environment where team effectiveness can emerge.

The group seemed to really "get it" and to be pleased that the concepts were in the language they use every day.  I'm going to continue building on this idea - and I'm happy it has turned out well.   People like to learn in the language they use every day.  Using organizational/functional metaphors is one way to do this.

Neat-O eh?