OFF-SITES
Contrary to the assumptions of his rivals, Rich O’Connor had no tolerance for touchy-feely off-site meetings. In fact, his staff had come to refer to his meetings as “hug-free zones,” a term they coined during Telegraph’s first management retreat five years earlier. It was then that Maurine, Jamie’s predecessor, insisted on doing a team-building exercise off-site and invited a consultant to do a half-day session for the Telegraph staff.
 
Her consultant opened the meeting with a feeble but innocuous trust-building exercise in which the executives were blindfolded and had to solve a simple problem using only their voices and sense of touch. The consultant could not see Rich rolling his eyes behind his blindfold; if he had, he certainly ...

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