I’m Joyce Ngo – public relations enthusiast, student, and currently TeamBonding marketing intern. This summer as part of my internship I will be focusing on social media and bringing the experience of the events and programs we do to the mass public from my perspective. You’ll get a behind the scenes view of what happens before the event and the preparation that goes into it. I’ll be posting blog posts about my observations and experience at each event. Basically, you’ll get to see what Joyce the Intern sees, no fluff. This week I went to a Versagility event.
Versagility is a high-energy outdoor group game. Teams compete in a variety of challenges with varying levels of difficulty to earn points. The harder the challenge, the more points they earn. The team with the most points at the end wins. The key is that the teams have to draw on the skills of the members and depend on their individual contributions as well as team contribution. It’s a great way for everyone to learn more about each other, what they might or might not be good at and build on it as a team. Maybe some members are more suited for the complex mind challenges, mind-benders, or puzzles while others are more adept at the more physical challenges.
The event was different than the previous events I attended because the CEO participated too. Everyone was a little stiff at first, but the icebreakers loosened everyone up to have fun with it. Turns out they had a number of competitive people and didn’t even know it. Some team members were shocked that they were such competitive people. They had a break dancer among them and had no idea until the dance competition brought it out. Everyone was competitive and in good spirits.
The event was full of challenges like putting a hole in one, building a tower using playing cards, completing a puzzle without looking at the picture, and catching 12 pencils off the back of your hand. Not to mention recreating a famous painting, creating a flipbook cartoon, or using a rope and forming a square with your team – blindfolded! One of the challenges included building a five-foot tall paper tower (fun fact: I am 5’0”) so I like told one team,”If you can get it to be even with me then you’re good.”
I saw one man try a trick where he had to bounce a tennis ball with a hockey stick 20 times. He kept trying, didn’t give up, and kept at it for a solid 20 minutes until he succeeded. No surprise that he won the award for “Comeback Player” at the end. He wasn’t the only one to refuse to give up either. Seeing how determined everyone was to get the right answers and to solve the puzzles was really motivating. Truthfully some of the red challenges (the hardest ones) were confusing to me too and I had the answer key.
Somehow, in the end, the yellow team won with almost double the points other groups had. They completed the harder challenges by delegating tasks to each person most suited to their individual skills and talents. Which really was the goal of the whole program. Versagility tests the versatility and agility of teams with a wide range of challenges. They require them to know the strengths of their team members and apply them most effectively to win.
As an inexperienced team member, new to all these events, I just had the online description to go off of. That was along the lines of what I expected Versagility to be like, but it was that and so much more. An online description can’t capture the energy and competitive spirit that this group had. It doesn’t tell you about the intermittent dance breaks, the friendly banter (smack talk), or the inside jokes. In the end, each person knew more about their co-worker and their not-so-secret talents like a sitting handstand! Safe to say that the event was a success.
