Last week, my colleague, Deb Siverson, and I worked with a corporate team. Team members met face-to-face for the first time and came from all over the world—Germany, Singapore, the UK as well as the US. More than half of the team was born outside of the US.   

This was my first experience working with such a diverse team in terms of language and culture.  Deb and I soon discovered that we would need to adapt our work with the group to account for the language barriers and cultural differences.  Story-telling, a main ingredient of one part of the workshop, just didn’t translate when peppered with slang. 

We started to use the body—asking that stories be told with physical gestures and movement.  The team members responded beautifully, even as one or two needed encouragement and prompting.  We knew we were on the right track when faces lit up with a new understanding of what was being communicated. 

At the end of the day, we decided that instead of the usual “give me your takeaway from today,” we needed a different way to close the workshop. We were running out of time and had a plane to catch, so it also had to be quick.  Asking for words would take too long and bog us down with the language barrier.  Instead, Deb suggested “thirty seconds of crazy fun.”  I was afraid that Deb was going to look to me for ideas.  I had just said that playing and fun were strengths of mine. But “crazy fun” in 30 seconds seemed daunting. The team members thought that as well. 

In a moment of inspiration, Deb yelled out, “Let’s do the Hokey Pokey!”  The Germans looked at us with a blank stare.  As soon as Deb said it, I knew it would work.  Even if half of the group had no idea what the Hokey Pokey was. So we started. By the time we got to “you put your left foot in,” the group was beaming and following along like it was a long lost childhood ritual. It served the purpose of closing out the day on a high note, where everyone could participate and be in the energy of a perfectly aligned group.

Sometimes, all we need is a stirring round of the Hokey Pokey.