Ship shape

January is ordinarily a quiet month, so I was shocked when this year kicked off to find myself with five big nights out requiring babysitters plus two work-related events, not to mention a high-value case scheduled to mediate in early January, necessitating nose and grindstone becoming quickly reacquainted when the office reopened post-festivities. However, the snow soon put paid to that.

One of the work events was billed as 'Mixology' '“ a client entertainment evening with a difference. It was basically a group lesson in cocktail making sited in a London bar. The evening was well organised, with the specialist event-attached barmen obviously well used to hosting. It began fairly sedately with people politely sitting at the nearest table to await instructions. Each table was a team and was to submit its best cocktail in several rounds before the bartenders would award the winners' prizes. Some people donned their game faces at this point, while others feigned disinterest. Several rounds and numerous cocktail tastings later the competition was hotting up, and there was even a sabotage attempt involving peanuts.

The second work-related date was a 'National team away day' '“ words which often induce collective sighs and glazed expressions as people envisage hours of being talked at with only coffee and biscuit breaks to interrupt the monotony. This was not so.

Passengers, points and prizes

It took place in Birmingham, on the basis that the city is pretty equidistant from my team's locations in Manchester, Liverpool and London. It involved an early start all-round and nobody looked terribly enthused when the external trainer explained at 9.30am that we were about to undertake a two-and-a-half- hour group exercise involving 'the suspension of all reality'¦ a stricken ship in the Bering sea'¦ it can communicate only with your team via laptop'¦unconscious crew'¦passengers' lives are in your hands'¦'. What? We're lawyers, you know. Had we wandered into a naval training exercise by mistake?

There was momentary panic as the three teams' laptops kicked in simultaneously and started counting down from two hours 30 minutes by the second, while spewing out numerous written communications from the ship plus tasks which had to be prioritised and allocated within the teams. There were red herring assignments designed to waste time and lose you points, hints that collaboration between teams on some jobs may enhance performance, and for the frustrated scientists among us there were exercises involving candles, copper and water, drinking straws and sellotape.

Once again appealing to the competitive streak within each of us, the team with the highest points tally was to be awarded some Willy Wonka chocolates, which certainly got my attention.

Valuable lessons

The task time flew surprisingly fast. It was genuinely interesting to work with some colleagues with whom I have not had much prior involvement, and valuable lessons were reinforced. The clearest by far was the need to communicate, both within your own team and with clients, or, in this case, the ship's passengers. One group had, in caricature-lawyer style according to our trainer, so busied themselves with the various tasks at hand that they had not communicated their progress to the increasingly panicking passengers. This had cost them dear interms of points making prizes.

The above moral is of course something which we all know and are mindful of, such as the rule that the client as king is always right and must be regularly updated, etc. Such mantras can be repeated until team leaders are blue in the face, but a more practical method of driving the message home really works as it takes people outside of their everyday bubble and provokes more lasting thought.

My social appointments for the month were equally varied, from a James Bond-themed ball to a Jimmy Carr gig in Warrington. The former came complete with fire breathers, witch doctors and two girls who were painted gold and clad only in bikinis. The comedy evening was funny, as you would expect, but not least as one guy rather bizarrely used it as the forum to propose to his girlfriend in front of a 1,000-strong audience. Whatever floats your boat.

2010 has got off to a busy and interesting start and has left me looking forward to the next instalment. For now, I shall work on catching my breath and rescheduling that mediation.