by Peter A. Arthur-Smith, Leadership Solutions, Inc.®

                                                “TEAM = Together Everyone Achieves More”

   In our prior article we shared all the individual engagement required to pull-off this Big Birthday Surprise. Now we can mention the five teams that made project success almost inevitable. The lucky ones we turned to were the cake-making, hero-making, invitation sourcing, apartment-building support and party-maker teams.

Your writer is not exactly sure how many people were involved in making the two cakes, or how many were involved in making almost one hundred scrumptious, hero-style sandwiches. Even so, they did a great job. It was only left to this writer to pick-up their creations by cab or from across the street: right on time. How many times have we heard of such important assignments not being fulfilled on time?

The invitation sourcing team, consisting of several contacts, had been doing their level best over the prior month to feed your writer potential guest contact addresses or secretly getting the word out. Unfortunately some people were missed; otherwise inquiries would have likely given the game away. The apartment-building support people, regarding extra chairs, permitting guest access, and alerting your writer when the birthday-girl was in the elevator, were also crucial.

Finally, it came down to the party-prep team holding everything together at the eleventh hour by laying-out the party apartment, placing food ready for devouring, and being ready to serve drinks to a thirsty crowd. At 7.00pm sharp the doorbell already started ringing to announce the first guest arrivals. The party-prep team swung into action. Guests then started tumbling in very quickly because so many wanted to be there for the surprised birthday-girl at 7.30pm.

She was truly stunned as everyone went into a hush mode, as soon as your writer was tipped-off on her rising passage in the elevator. She never expected to be greeted by 80-100 people who burst into that well known Happy Birthday song. A couple of friends used their iPhones to video her arrival. It was a moment to savor when she was almost speechless. Her greeting party included a number of people from far away that she hadn’t seen in quite a long time. It just remained for her to interact with effusive “Hellos” and hugs toward her well-wishers either as individuals or as couples.

And then came the other big surprise: allowing the birthday-girl to hear birthday wishes directly from friends in Sweden and the UK, either via phone or Facebook in the middle of their night. Other friends followed with email congratulations from Luxembourg and Spain. So, this all made it an international occasion, too. They featured as the other special, scattered team congratulating from afar.

It wasn’t long before this writer received comments like: “Congratulations Peter, you pulled off this big surprise.” But in his own mind, he was thanking his lucky stars for all those great, ad-hoc team members. It just demonstrated how people will step-up for the right occasion and the right approach.

So what were the realizations gained from such an important festive occasion? Take a look as follows:

» Given the right pretext, the right message and the right approach, a true surprise occasion is possible.

» It’s amazing how generous and willing people are in giving of themselves, when approached in the right way.

» Despite the birthday being on the least favorable day of the week and immediately after a holiday weekend, people still stepped-up for the right occasion and given enough advance warning.

» It’s a joy to see people working together as a team, and know how much they enjoyed working with others.

» This writer was in someone’s good books for at least a week after J

To find out more about a teamwork approach, talk with: