Getting your mojo back

We are recently back from our ‘corporate’ skiing trip to sunny Aviemore. There were about 26 of us piled into a series of chalets, and the emphasis was on the après rather than ski. I have however been instructed by my colleagues to point out that this had very little to do with work and so there is no way I can work it into my column this week.

Or is there? It has been noted that we have all become very serious at work recently. Walk into our office and you will see people stuck heads-down, beavering frantically away at their work. I thought this was not such a bad thing until a colleague from the old days rejoined us. She said it was good to see we had grown, but it just wasn’t as much fun any more. We have lost our corporate mojo.

Back in the early days, we couldn’t help but work together. We shared premises (OK, squatted) in the offices of the generous people at Insider magazine. At one stage, the three of us all shared the one desk which was, well, cosy. We used to huddle in the kitchen for our corporate meetings.

We moved on, but the spirit stayed with us. One of our corporate institutions was Friday afternoon ‘drinkies’. I remember spraining my ankle trying to carry someone down the front stairs, and we were eventually banned from a couple of West End bars. I think it was Alan’s party trick of setting fire to his chest hairs.

Now we seem to have inadvertently grown-up and I want to know how to get the old team spirit back.

One good idea is brainstorming. This conjures up images of people sitting around in funny hats, but it really works when you all sit down to discuss an issue. Often the best ideas come from people who have a bit of perspective on the project.

There is also the technique of Management By Walking Around. As far as I understand it, this involves generally sticking your nose into everyone’s business. I’ll give it a go, but I can imagine where they will tell me to go stick my nose.

It would also be good to get the drinking going again, though this might mean setting up crèche first.

I should point out at this stage, that just because I write about these things, we don’t actually know how to do any of them and we would love more suggestions. Otherwise we will have to follow the management technique of Make It Up As You Go Along.