The Escape Room: An exercise in Team Leadership

Teams are the Corvette’s of organizations. They can accomplish so much, but… they need to be well led. In this article I take the reader through some of the key aspects of effective Team Leadership as it applies to the context of a smaller group of individuals with a common goal. Last weekend I was invited to take part in an escape room experience. I was first introduced to the escape room experience in a recent episode of the Big Bang Theory and it seems that it has done wonders for the business. In an escape room you and your friends are placed in an environment where you have one common goal…get out. But, in order to do so you have to solve challenging puzzles, decipher cryptography, navigate obstacles and a myriad of other creative roadblocks all designed to stop you from getting out. To make matters worse, you have a time limit of one hour. Sometimes there is only one challenge that lead that can be done at the same time but in others there could be multiple and depending upon how many members are in your group, you had better be well organized.  The success of any organization or group can ultimately be decided by how well the teams work together (Belbin, 2012). This is definitely true in this type of scenario but it can easily be applied to larger groups or organizations as well. What better experience to relate the necessary aspects of good team leadership. Somebody will need to take control because a free for all will get you nowhere fast.

Adapted from Leadership: Theory and Practice, Sixth Edition, by Peter Northouse.  2013, SAGE Publications, Inc.

Step One: Monitor or Take Action

According to Hill’s Team Leadership theory is to decide whether to monitor the situation or take action. By monitoring the situation I may be able look at the big picture and analyze what needs to be done and potentially foresee potential problems (Abolrous, 2010). Is there one puzzle that everyone could work on or are there multiple where are productivity could be greatly increased by splitting off the groups. Alternatively I could take action. I can assign groups to go off and work on specific parts of the puzzle. There may also be arguments amongst the group members that I may need to solve. Maybe there is disagreement on who should be working on what puzzle or maybe they just don’t like one another.

Step Two: Task or Relational

I need to decide if I should intervene to make sure the job gets done, make the decision and solve the problems. Or, should I be more concerned with maintaining a good team environment so that everyone works to their highest potential? (Northhouse, 2012). My main goal here is to make sure we work together. 

Step three: Internal or External

I have to figure out what part of the team process needs my attention the most. Should I be dealing with the internal leadership actions of task and relational or should I be focused on external leadership actions such as the environmental factors at play. 

Internal Task

• Goal focusing – Should I get agreement from the group on what to do or work on?
• Structuring for results – how do I see this puzzle getting solved? What is my master plan?
• Facilitating Decisions – I need to be in control of the situation
• Training – Is there some expertise I can offer my group? If I am an expert with cryptography I help out in this area and get my team on the same page.
• Maintaining Standards – This is typically where one might assess individual performance and while it would work well in the corporate world I doubt my friends would find it enjoyable.

Internal Relational

• Coaching – This is more of an organization approach to working on interpersonal skills and doesn’t play in this scenario
• Collaboration – I need to make sure that everyone is involved and that all ideas are heard. Collectively we are more powerful.
• Managing Conflict & Satisfying Needs – The only way this gets done in the hour available is if there is one leader without anyone constantly questioning the decisions being made. It is vital that the leader have the support and trust of their group.
• Building Commitment – I need to keep everyone optimistic about getting the puzzles solved and keeping the goal front and center.

External Environmental

•  It should be noted that teams are typically given the chance for 1 clue to help them get through a tough spot during the game. It would be up to the leader to decide if and when such an action needs to take place.
• Buffering – There is no need to concern other team members with unnecessary distractions that inhibit their performance.
• Sharing Information – It’s up to the leader to share information with each part of the team. You don’t want to get mixed up when there are multiple tasks being performed.

If I have acted as a good leader my group will be effective, motivated and on task. Everyone needs to know what their role is and the leader need to communicate this effectively. In the escape room environment you will eventually find out how well you performed as a team. This is determined by whether or not you made it out and how quickly you did so. Not to toot my own team’s horn but we were out in under 50 minutes! This was a great experience and potentially a great team building exercise. I strongly suggest this to anyone looking for some fun and instant feedback on team leadership.

References

Abolrous, H. (2010).Team Leadership: The Leadership Theory. Retrieved from http://leadershiptheories.blogspot.ca/2010/02/team-leadership.html

Belbin, M. (2011). Management teams: Why they succeed or fail. Human Resource Management International Digest, 19(3).

Northouse, G. (2013). Leadership Theory and Practice. (6th ed.) Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.