Dreadful corporate away days

Oh my goodness! I have just caught up with last week’s episode of The Apprentice. This is a UK TV show in which Alan Sugar, aka Lord Sugar, gives a group of young business people, Apprentices, a series of tasks. The programme series culminates in Lord Sugar choosing an Apprentice whose business he will invest in.

Last week’s task was to plan and run a corporate Away Day, a subject close to my heart. The two teams both succeeded in running dreadful events. The events were different, but common threads of dreadfulness ran through both: no attention to designing the event to achieve a purpose; toe-curling, irrelevant games like sumo wrestling; no relevance to the effectiveness of the participants’ work.

I know this TV show is designed to attract viewers, rather than deliver any serious business messages, but I was shocked to see how these Away Days were run. I really didn’t think companies spent their money and time on this kind of meaningless drivel any more!