MSLD 635 Module 4- Build a Tower, Build a Team

Tom Wujec’s Build a Tower, Build a Team was an interesting TED talk that mainly focused on the results of the “marshmallow problem” from various group members. The goal of the team-building exercise was to build the tallest, freestanding tower that consist of 20 sticks of dry spaghetti, a yard of tape and strings, and topping the tower with a single large marshmallow. During the talk, Wujec mainly focused on the results of two groups: the MBA students and kindergartners. The results were interesting: where kindergartners yield taller towers than MBA students (Wujec, 2010).

Personally, the results were not really surprising: as I personally experienced similar results to the MBA students in a past group activity. Back when I was studying business, my class was divided into two groups to silently build a bridge that can hold and support the weight of a thick textbook. We only had 30 minutes to build the bridge and had a very limited supply of cardboard, tapes, glue, and other craft items. Since we were not allowed to talk, our group communicated using body language and mostly by drawing. Just as Wujec stated, business students are trained to find the single right plan (Wujec, 2010). While part of it was likely because of the silent rule, we spent more than half of the time planning rather than building, ran out of time, and failed to make an effective bridge (it’s funny since both groups failed!).

After watching Wujec’s talk, I agreed with his analysis of the experiment. Unlike the MBA students, Wujec found that Kindergartners performed better because of their ability to continuously make prototypes, and build on to successful ones. In addition, they did not bother to “jockey for power”: saving them time to establish the prototypes (Wujec, 2010). Personally, I believe that the children performed better than MBA students because of the variety of kids that were in the group. This was seen when Wujec compared the results of architects and engineers, CEOs, and CEOs working with an executive admin (Wujec, 2010). His results reminded me of how the Google Company promotes innovation within their company. To do so, the company established the Google Café: where employees from various departments were encouraged to communicate with one another. This not only help establish stronger company relationships, but it was also used as a learning opportunity to employees (He, 2013).

In my organization, we follow some similar strategies Wujec shared in his talk. At my level, I can only cover very general advisement to prospective and current students. When I come across any unusual or complex situation, I rely on the help of my coworkers: who have the knowledge and skills they specialize in from their department. As we collaborate, we sometimes come across flaws and other information. From this point, employees can then focus on them and can either add on or enhance our current campus operations.

References:

He, L. (2013). Google’s Secrets Of Innovation: Empowering Its Employees. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurahe/2013/03/29/googles-secrets-of-innovation-empowering-its-employees/#7913604657e7

Wujec, T. (2010). Tom Wujec: Build a tower, build a team [Video File]. TED. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/tom_wujec_build_a_tower/transcript