I dislike the programme The Apprentice. Okay, I agree, it is fun television but it is horribly misguided about what makes good teamwork; it gets the ingredients all wrong.  We have a simple recipe for teamwork at Birch Hall Adventures:

Head – You need to use your head to think and solve problems

Eyes – You have to observe what is going on, you have to do your research and not jump straight in with a solution that might not be best.

Ears – You have to listen to the other members of your team and encourage the quiet ones to share their ideas. This means being quiet yourself sometimes!

Mouth – You will need to speak up and share your ideas.  You will need to encourage one another with your words. However, don’t be the one doing all the talking!

Hands – You need to use your skills, but also remember that different people have different skills.  The best teams make use of the everyone’s best skills in their role.  Sometimes, though, you have to try something new and learn a new skill.

Feet – Use your feet. Projects and problems don’t solve themselves, you need to work at them, you can’t be the one sitting down all the time!

Hearts – The most important ingredient and the one most forgotten about in The Apprentice.  Teams work best when the members care for each other and want the team and others to succeed more than themselves; this means using our hearts. The best leaders are the ones that get this right. The motto of the British army Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, is just this: “Serve to Lead”

At Birch Hall Adventures we encourage teamwork and help young people to build teams that work, support each other, have fun and succeed.

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Working together