Corporations today frequently bring employees together outside the work place to participate in 'team-building' retreats. These exercises insist on mock confidentiality and intimacy, often including such experiences as having people fall backward into the arms of fellow workers, supposedly creating a sense of mutual trust. The feelings generated by these retreats often dissipate rapidly, however, when workers return to their daily jobs, where intimacy and mutual support may not be the rule. General Electric tried a different approach. During the off-site business meeting, it gave five hundred employees the day off to help construct a homeless shelter for St Vincent de Paul. In a single day, the group accomplished months of labour in terms of the ordinary construction schedule for the shelter.
Without having to be roused by the usual self-serving exhortations that accompany team-building experiences, employees reckoned the construction experience a positive one: they appreciated being able to do something of value for others; they saw their colleagues in a new light, for they too welcomed the chance to do good; co-operation was required to accomplish a worthwhile goal; and finally, it isn't often that people have a chance to sweat next to one another in real labour. Many likened it to their college and army experience, where they had formed the closest friendships of their lives. Actually, it was quite like a barn raising - a common community experience in former days.
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