Teaming - I must be doing something right!!

The new team that reported for duty on 31st March seems to be coming along well. I was a little apprehensive in the beginning, given India's culture of caste (some levels of insularity) , language (only Hindi and English is a common language) and backgrounds (educational, environmental, religious etc).

By the third day, I could observe a lot of team communications and self help, especially in the areas where they had some common issues.The first was transportation. Hena who probably stays the furthest from the office compared to the others (she stays in Noida) was having issues with getting to the right site to get her transport. She was given the runaround as to where she was supposed to wait. Her bus was also missing her (departing 2 minutes earlier than scheduled - though maybe it could have been her watch out of sync!). The other team members called up each other to make sure they got their transport and to let me know if anyone was going to be late because the bus missed them.

A few common words suddenly held special meanings to the team over the past 2 weeks. Randeep was assigned a huge CRT monitor instead of the slicker LCD monitors with the smaller footprint. I referred to it as Ganapathy (the Indian God that looks like an elephant). The name stuck.

If you were to say out loud - BANANA TEST- you could probably get a laugh from the team. I was sharing with them a story of why it was important to listen carefully and understand the details when they receive calls. As an illustration, I gave them this story
There was a coconut tree somewhere along one of the beaches in India and along came 4 animals - an orangutan, a monkey, a chimpanzee and King Kong.

Which animal managed to get a banana first?

And of course, everyone answered one of the above. Which made them stupid, idiotic, moronic and so on.

Because.......... you cannot get a banana from the coconut tree!!!

Another couple of words which raises a laugh with this team - BICYCLE PUMP!!
I had another story to break the monotony of training

There was this girl who had been shielded and sheltered from the realities of the world almost all her life. She never knew about sex and so on - that's how naive she was. But lo and behold - she did find someone to love and got married. And in due course, she got pregnant. She gets worried as her stomach grew and went back to mum - "Mum, why is my belly growing bigger?" Mum, in her eternal wisdom told her daughter - don't worry. It's just air!!

When she got home, her hubby happily asked her - so dear, are you all ready for the pitter patter of little feet in the house? Naive girl goes - what pitter patter?
Hubby - you know, the precious gift you are carrying in your belly?
Naive Girl - oh this? Mum says it is just air!!

Hubby blew his top, went to the mum in law and pulled downed his pants. Mum - what do you think this is? A bicycle pump???

Okay - Back to work!!