We hear a lot about team building these days. Team-building gurus are hired by somecorporations to lecture us on how to work more effectively with each other. And they organiseawaydays - a time employees spend together away from their usual workplace.

Here in the UK, employees can take part in activities such as Zombie boot camps where military instructors train you how to fight walking 'dead people'. For the brainier office workers amongst us there are crime investigations modelled on popular TV dramas like Sherlock Holmes and CSI.

Stressed-out city workers might have ukulele lessons made available to them. Why is that a good team-building exercise? Ukulele teacher Lorraine Bow says: "The fact that they can play a musical instrument within an hour is quite a fulfilling thing, really. It's not competitive – it's quite easy to do and a bit less intimidating than a guitar…"

Actually, a horse might be a bit more intimidating than an instrument. The animals are used by a company in Abu Dhabi which teaches leadership through horse training. Basically, you have to go in a yard with a horse and persuade it that you're the boss by using body language.

Kelly Eide, co-founder of True Leadership, says: "The horses don't care if your hair is purple, if you're a man or a woman, if you're old or young... It transcends all of those cultural boundaries – age, gender, religion, tradition etc. – so that's a perfect fit. And in an organization where you really need groups of people to gel, who come from backgrounds which have no common norms, you can teach that most efficiently with a horse."

And the horse feels instinctively whether or not you are a natural leader. So if after you've done a good presentation your boss offers you a carrot, you'll know where he might have learnt it from.

詞匯表

team building      團(tuán)隊(duì)建設(shè)
guru      領(lǐng)袖，權(quán)威
corporation      公司，企業(yè)
effectively      有效地
awayday      息工日
workplace      工作地點(diǎn)，工作場(chǎng)所
boot camp      訓(xùn)練營(yíng)
brainier (brainy)      更為精明的
stressed-out      （因精神壓力）精疲力盡的
ukulele      尤克里里琴
fulfilling      充實(shí)的，令人滿意的
competitive      競(jìng)爭(zhēng)的
leadership      領(lǐng)導(dǎo)能力
to persuade       說(shuō)服
body language      肢體語(yǔ)言
to transcend      超越
to gel      （團(tuán)隊(duì)成員）相互磨合