Gear, Gear and more Gear! The equipment of team building.
Unlike many forms of team and leadership development, "classic team building" is renowned for requiring enormous amounts of "stuff" for successful delivery.
Way back in the olden days of team building, the gear consisted of "big stuff" such as heavy poles, climbing ropes, harnesses, big raft building drums and myriad buckets and strings for "old school" problem solvers.
Things have certainly moved on.
Whilst we still have two big sheds full of the "old school stuff" (that occasionally gets brought out of retirement for that rare client needing it), things have certainly become far more sophisticated in the 21st century. The gear has thus moved the times also.
In addition to the classic heavy gear, we now have an electronic retail store's worth of video cameras, iPods, tablets and other technology associated with the delivery of some of high-end film and ad making concepts and other tech-based business games.
Our various storage rooms, sheds and main warehouses would mystify a visitor who was unfamiliar with what we do.
They would pass tanks, jeeps, cammo uniforms and historical suits of armour before getting to what looks like a fully stocked art shop then a bright and colourful fashion house filled to the brim with materials, wigs, costumes and other weirdness.
Our numerous shelves that get stacked with more "travel friendly" items would see them bemused by many fine Roman silks, exotic bling in the form of jewelled necklaces and rings as well as miniature figures, sacks, gems, crystals, hundreds of coloured tubes and other bizarre items for themed table top business games.
Whilst the gear is certainly not cheap to obtain and maintain, it really does help to separate the industry professionals from the amateurs with respect to the commitment levels required to stay at the top in this field.
At times some of us get frustrated with storing some of the odd "stuff" that has been accumulated since 1988 (and that the MD hangs onto for "sentimental reasons"), but it makes for a fun workplace whenever any of us go to a fancy dress or require some obscure prop.
Who knows what new game will come next from the Sabre "skunk works", and what strange stuff we'll need to acquire and store in our madhouse of team building gear and props?