A630.8.4.RB - Build a Tower, Build a Team

The TedTalks video by Tom Wujec, titled Build a tower, build a team is extremely inspirational. Originally, Peter Skillman, formerly the VP of Designs at Palm, talked about an experiment he conducts with marshmallows and spaghetti and the surprising results he learned from one group. Tom Wujec incorporates this team building workshop and gained great insight into the qualities of high performance teams. Wujec (2011) is a big believer of this experiment, he states “I believe the marshmallow challenge is among the fastest and most powerful technique for improving a team’s capacity to generate fresh ideas, build rapport and incorporate prototyping, all of which lie at the heart of effective innovation.”

The Marshmallow Design Challenge is conducted with teams of four that each has 18 minutes to create the tallest freestanding structure possible with 20 pieces of spaghetti, a meter of tape, one piece of string and one marshmallow. One insightful fact, which Tom Wujec found, is that kindergartners performed better on the Spaghetti Challenge than MBA students (Wujec, 2010). I agree with this assessment; Skillman points out that this might be because the kindergartners don’t waste time in seeking power or they don’t sit around talking about the problem. Kids are performing better than adults because they teach other what they learned and they are a reminder of what you forgotten.The children also enjoyed building and try out different types of structure without wasting time.

       According to Wujec (2010), architects and engineers consistently built the tallest, most stable structures, while business school students were the lowest performers. Another interesting fact was that CEOs scored above average, but with an executive assistant they performed much better. In my observation, this is in alignment of the hierarchy of an organization. Executive assistants are in tune with the CEOs insuring they are on track and guiding them through their busy scheduled; they keep the flow of information and relay the CEOs vision down the chain. This is why the CEOs scored higher than if they were alone.

         This is a fun and interactive exercise that is low cost with little time to conduct. Facilitating this experiment is easy to understand and help individual work as a team. An outsider practitioner could utilize this resource to see how well teams are working in the company. This team project will help in communication enhancement and will get members getting to know each other a little better. This is a well balance way to conduct an intervention and develop intervention skills. According Brown (2011), one challenge for the OD practitioner is to try to develop a balanced intervention—one that considers member rights and well being along with improvements in productivity. The Marshmallow Design Challenge will help member work together at the same time improve productivity.

          In summary, The Marshmallow Design Challenge is an exercise that I look forward to incorporating in my department; but also incorporating it in my personal life as well. This exercise  can teach my children the fundamental of structures and most importantly how to work as a team.

References:

Brown ,D. (2011). An experiential approach to organizational development. (8th ed.). New Jersey:  Prentice Hall.

Tom Wujec: Build a tower, build a team | Video on TED.com. (February 2010). TED: Ideas worth spreading. Retrieved October 04, 2015, from http://www.ted.com/talks/tom_wujec_build_a_tower.html