As you all know, GLAD WORKS had our annual retreat a little while back. Normally we play team-building games, some silly, some serious, but in the end, we come out of it with a renewed sense of our mission and better, stronger bond with our teammates.

It’s the most important thing we do for ourselves all year, and this year, Adam, Gina, and Evangelia decided to throw a little something different at us. We’ve been watching the show The Pitch at our Lunch’ n’ Learn sessions and have had lots of great discussions about it afterward. So, the Directors decided to do a little experiment with the team for this year’s retreat and give us an assignment similar to what contestants on The Pitch would experience.

They split us into two separate, strategically created groups and handed us a creative brief asking each team to address the following issues:

• Redefine GLAD WORKS online presence
• Showcase the use of new technology
• Recreate our website

The team was excited to learn that GLAD WORKS would be our new “big client” because we’ve been talking about how we can improve our online presence and spruce things up a bit. Even if this means working late at night after all client projects have been put to bed, the entire team is super invested in this endeavor.

So, the respective teams (The GLADIATORS and Team Awesome!) each went about preparing their pitch to the GLAD WORKS directors. We had only one week to decide on our ideas and how best to present them. So that production would not be affected, the teams met at lunch and even stayed after working hours.

Oh, the trash talking, GLAD WORKS friends!  It was marvelous, and everyone enjoyed sneaking around and planting fake evidence of what they were up to to throw the others off the trail.

After the week was over, it came time for the retreat and the presentation of ideas. The GLADIATORS had style boards and wireframes and a very swanky presentation style. Team Awesome! Had fantabulous tee shirts, a wireframe, and a more casual approach with each team member focusing on his or her area of expertise and presenting ideas that addressed each major set of objectives.

In the end, it was The GLADIATORS who won The Pitch, because let’s face it, they were fancier, but ultimately GLAD WORKS as a whole was the real winner. We were excited to learn that both teams brought very similar ideas to the table. Each set had their own nuances and strokes of genius, but in all, it was clear that even though we are a diverse group of creative thinkers, we all had a great sense of who GLAD WORKS is as a company, what our strengths and values are, and what can make us even better as a team and as a company as a whole.

Our experiment with The Pitch turned out to be the best team building exercise we could have done, and we will probably be doing more things like this in the future. Now we can come back together as a whole and take the best ideas from each team to create some amazing and exciting new things for GLAD WORKS, and most importantly, our clients.

So stay connected, GLAD WORKS friends, and keep an eye out for some truly exciting and innovative things to come!