China Syndrome

What it is

China Syndrome is often considered impossible at the beginning and can be mentally tough, but with tenacity and perseverance teams complete it. It tests critical thinking under a deadline — something no amount of physical brawn can overcome. Clear communication and a common vocabulary are the keys. A variation eliminates the group’s natural leader, forcing the team to use each individual’s skills and practice letting others take the helm — the kind of role-switching good teams depend on. Creativity, coordination, communication, leadership, perseverance and determination all get tested. It is tough; even the best teams struggle, and the solution is a mix of creativity, logic and a great deal of communication.

How it works

Two buckets (of sand or water) sit inside a 60-foot-diameter circle, and participants may not step inside it. Using several ropes and a circular bungee, the team must pour the contents of one bucket into the other from outside the circle: attach the ropes to the bungee, pull from all sides to stretch it around a bucket, then manipulate the ropes to lift and pour. Anyone handling the ropes is blindfolded — and therefore has to be coached, in real time, by teammates who can see. Allow at least an hour; it can be run indoors with enough room, substituting balls for water. (Full step-by-step setup and debrief questions are in the downloadable guide below.)

What it reveals: communication

If you’re blindfolded, you depend completely on someone else to get your job done — and it’s frustrating to be given the same instruction, the same way, over and over when it clearly isn’t landing. How often does that happen at work? All the time. It’s just as hard on the coaching side: conveying the right information in a way that’s actually meaningful, and finding a different way to say it when the first one fails. How often do executives have too little information and still have to decide — or tell the same person the same thing repeatedly and watch it not land? Part of the problem is usually the communication itself.

What it reveals: leadership

This event requires leadership, leadership and more leadership. It often surfaces the ‘natural’ leader — who is neutralized in the first few seconds, so the group has to decide who leads next. Leadership almost always changes during the event, sometimes by group decision and sometimes because one person simply starts leading. In theory every executive has been trained to lead; in practice this exposes which leadership styles actually work here — and the trap of extrapolating a style to situations where it doesn’t.

What it reveals: problem solving

This is perhaps our most difficult activity for problem solving, because it appears impossible at the start. Leadership frequently changes as one leader’s ideas and solutions are discarded — and it’s revealing to watch how people treat each other while ideas are debated, and how often a team clings to the same solution even when it plainly isn’t working. Leadership and communication are woven straight through the problem-solving, which makes the debrief a direct mirror of how the same difficulties show up at work.

Interesting things to watch for

• Leadership shifts when the current leader gets frustrated or the group splits on approach — watch how everyone reacts, and whether the old leader pulls back or digs in.
• With a time-management variation, strategy, leadership and communication styles change as the clock runs down — much like the time crunch at work that turns people into dictators or poor communicators.
• Almost no one coaching ever puts on a blindfold to understand what the blindfolded teammates are experiencing.
• Great ideas get thrown out and ignored — why? Is it always the same person whose ideas are dismissed without discussion? Does that happen at work too?
• Some participants become disenfranchised during the event — what caused it?

The bottom line: a genuinely difficult but fun exercise that groups want to run again even after they know the solution — and with the variations, it becomes monstrously hard. Ideal for a team that enjoys tough problem solving.