Guys! It's group feed-back time!

Tony is putting some methodology around the process.

He stands before us, button-down collar open in a prefect triangle,
revealing an arc of round-neck white T-shirt beneath his Ben Sherman
gingham. There is a perfect symmetry in his body. Head neatly balanced,
legs twelve inches apart, arms winged flat by his sides. He's the gents
toilet symbol come to life.

'The Firo Element B Piece is a self-benchmark process,' he reminds us,
with an evangelical open-armed gesture. Pinnochio has come to
life.

Now he's rubbing his hands earnestly, and a frown of concern has
shadowed the passion of his thank-you-guys-for-that face.

'It's ok,' he consoles us. 'We'll help you with the scoring piece.
Leave the Next Steps piece till later.'

Then he turns and paces with deliberation towards the edge of the
facilitation space. His profile is lean and sharp. He rises and falls
on the fat plastic soles of his High Street leather uppers.

'There are all sorts of things that could tie into these particular
pieces,' he says. 'There's shock, there's anger.' With each emotion
Tony's left palm flashes towards us, fingers spreading out from a
point. 'And rejection.' Then he turns and his hands are raised, palms
cupped towards us. He wiggles them as he makes his next point. He could
be making a childish tit-groping gesture. But he's not. Tony would
never leave his boundaries in a group session. 'But you've got to check
the reality, guys.' Wiggle, wiggle. 'Test the perception.'

Then he's off to the flip chart, and caressing a fibre tip curve,
something he prepared earlier. 'See how the end's higher than the
beginning. That's where you find the acceptance and the hope. Feed-back
is personal to yourself,' fingers pressed to chest, 'and makes you a
richer person.'

What Tony's methodology means is that we are about to go into a group
assassinaton session. In our teams, we will give each other one-to-one
360 degree structured feed-back. Like that scene in Reservoir Dogs, we
will stand in a circle holding a gun to the head of the person next to
us. Now that's not thinking systematically, if you ask me.

But Tony reckons we'll be ok. As I rapidly process analyse all the
things I mustn't say about each of my team, Tony stretches, pushing out
his bony chest, hauling his navy Chinos up by their fat-buckled belt. I
wonder if he won it in the ring.

From the other side of our team-build circle, Raphael's lips slither an
odious smile my way.

How do you induce acceptance and hope in someone when all you have to
feed back to them is that they've been a prat all week?

This story continues in my ABC set 'Corporate Cuddling'.