Blue sky thinking that's just out of this world

The manager saw that the team was not a team and was most vexed. After looking up "vex" in the dictionary, it was clear the team needed to be more collaborative.

They needed a shared vision in order to go forward, progressing the mission statement, enhancing deliverables, meeting the wider goals within the diverse paradigm congruent with blue sky thinking and greenfields approach to the brightline horizon.

The Manager, dazzled by self-talk and possibilities, called the consultant and said the sky is falling on my team. The consultant had a company called Let's Work Together . Sensing a large fee falling from the sky, he began doing the paperwork via a shell company based in Liechtenstein.

Let's Work Together then contacted the Manager and offered, for a fee smaller than the team's yearly budget but larger than the team's total salary bill, to make, yea even force, the team to become collaborative. The deal was done and the following week the providers of Let's Work Together arrived and assembled the staff to introduce the framework of their programme.

"You need to become innovators, imaginators and unleash your potential on your unsuspecting colleagues. To do this we will divide you into a Red team and a Blue team. One will be called Star Treksonians, the other StarWarzonians. The monogrammed uniforms will be given out shortly. Each team will complete a personality test that will categorise members as either Wookies, Spocks, Ewoks or Yodas, depending on measured individual traits such as cuteness, speech mannerisms, dogmatic insistence on logic, grasp of basic grammar and amount of body hair.

"The Red and Blue teams will be expected to complete a series of tasks.

"These will require innovative thinking to avoid standing out in the team, the ability to keep your head down when the proverbial hits the fan, and skilled use of the term 'collaboration' whenever you are approached by a member if the public."

The staff shuffled their feet.

They worked in a government department and felt they did all that stuff really well already.

They looked out the windows, at their shoes, the ceiling, anywhere but at each other.

They were afraid, worried and anxious.

One of them was bound to laugh and then they would all burst out and someone would get fired. One of the junior staff stepped forward.

"The managing collaboration is the way no that we are thinking and changing this we must be?"

The Let's Work Together facilitator nodded and said: "Spoken like a true Yoda type personality.

"You bring a special combination of wisdom and passionate film buff to your Red team."

The whole room nodded in a collaborative way. "The first task will be for Blue team to make it impossible for the Red to do their work and prevent any possible collaboration from occurring by being generally unco-operative. The Red team will counter by creating a fortress constructed from policies and procedural manuals, behind which they can collaboratively fire memos and massive documents at the other team."

The Manager looked through the office window as this scene, played out in an open plan office shared by 50 people in red and blue T-shirts, and was pleased to see the collaborative way team members were handling their respective roles.

The Wookies were crying and being comforted by the Ewoks, while the Yodas kept shouting "It is your mind that using you must" as the Spocks felt their ears and pronounced on the logic of jamming the other team's photocopier.

-Terry Sarten is a writer, musician and authenticated satirista - feedback: tgs@inspire.net.nz.

Check this link to a Satirista Song of the Times: http://youtu.be/u-4CLaRDbgA