The Mindset Games
Over 100 employees from Deloitte offices all over the country travelled to London last month to attend the first edition of the Mindset Games! Designed as a collaborative team building exercise, teams competed against one another in five activities led by our world class athletes, all aimed at testing teamwork, communication, and leadership skills.
The session started off with a Q&A session with the athletes, giving the attendees an opportunity to quiz our athlete mentors about their sporting careers and the skills and experience they had gained over the years. Questions around working in effective teams and overcoming adversity as an elite athlete were two of the recurring themes. Hannah Beharry’s story about her continual rejection from the local boxing gym, purely because she was a woman before going on to become British and European champion, was just one story that had a big impression on the group. Vwaire Obukohwo’s story of being a black woman from Brixton making it in the white middle-class world of rowing also had a big impact.
Rebekah Lee who is a consultant with Deloitte said about the day:
“As someone who joined Deloitte last year, a day like this has been really good to connect with people on a national level. Hearing from the athletes about their stories of personal resilience and self-motivation was really inspirational.”
Following the Q&A the groups broke out into smaller teams to complete the various challenges set by our athlete mentors. Run the Gauntlet saw teams instructing blindfolded colleagues how to complete a mini obstacle course while Tower Build saw the groups work as a team to build the tallest power possible using only the paper, card, scissors and sellotape provided.
Olympic swimmer Adam Whitehead who devised the games and led the session said:
“These small games are a great way to get teams working together collaboratively and thinking as a team in a very short space of time. They provide a safe space to learn key skills around communication and leadership that are easily transferable to the workplace. Working with elite athletes provides a great opportunity to get an insight into and understand about a High Performance Mindset and learn in more detail what it takes to be successful.”
Following the games, participants and athletes came back together as a large group for a final review where the learnings from the sessions was discussed and a challenge was set to take these new skills back to their offices and implement into their everyday roles.
The Mindset Games are just one of our range of corporate offerings available to partners and businesses. Colleagues from Brooks Macdonald took part in our Survival Island Challenge last year, where an intrepid team spent two nights on a remote island overcoming a series of challenges that tested their physical, mental and team-work skills. A number of partners including Janus Henderson have also taken part in our Sports Day Like No Other, where they competed alongside world class athlete to develop teamwork, and confidence and improve their health and wellbeing. To find out more, please don’t hesitate to contact Victoria or Annie on fundraising@damekellyholmestrust.org