“Live and work but do not forget to play, to have fun in life and really enjoy it.” – Eileen Caddy
We often hear the importance of having fun at work. It is quite unexpected that a company would put ‘Fun’ as one of its core values and even live up to it. We broke the ice on the first day with introducing each team member to one another after a half hour interaction. The five weeks that followed were nothing short of a fun learning experience.
It was the element of fun that made our sessions more engaging and creating an atmosphere conducive to learning. Most of the leadership sessions that we had were an open and engaging discussion – the leaders expressed their views on Capgemini, the industry and on where they thought the future was headed towards. Willian F Sullivan, Head of Market Intelligence at CG FS, started his session on overview of Capgemini financial services with a Kahoot quiz which highlighted the key details of financial services. Even for those of us who could not get all the question correct, it helped us remember the correct answers
. Ramesh Darbha, Vice President at CG FS, on the other hand, explained the eight traps in decision making through the medium of role-play. Sinjini Bandyopadhyay, Manager at CG FS, demonstrated the power of disruptive thinking and innovation through a team activity in her session.
The following week, a scavenger hunt was organized in Hyderabad. We were divided into teams of four to five members each. The team members spent the whole day together, as we brainstormed photo ideas and posed while getting familiar with the city at the same time. Over the next few weeks, we had other social events – bowling, laser tag, and futsal. Having fun during interactions served as a wonderful means get to know each other. The events not only endorsed how seriously Capgemini believes in its core value of having fun but it was a reflection of how seriously Capgemini takes all of its core values.
All these sessions and outings helped the team members become more comfortable with sharing their thoughts, opinions, and disagreements in consecutive interactions. These traits were evident especially during the consulting skills workshop at Les Fontaines that was held in the last week of training. As we debated and challenged each other in the tasks assigned, we practised not only the core concepts of consulting but also got to know each other better - our weaknesses and strengths. Most of all, we learnt to support one another as a team – be it encouraging reluctant members to lead meetings, or asking opinions from the quietest members.
The experiences that we had during our training program made sure that when we started on our individual rotations, we started with an open mindset. We believe that the training program has already set us on the right path for beginning our corporate careers.