We had a wonderful session with Arthur last Thursday describing all the kinds of animals that we interact with in the Organizational Zoo.

Arthur’s warm style engaged the 25 members of the audience in a discussion of different types of animals (and one plant) that are forced together when we come to work.  The illustrations use various types of animals as a metaphor  for the type of people that we coming into contact with at work.  Arthur showed us that these metaphors can be used as an icebreaker for workshops, to describe your own strengths and weaknesses and to do all this in a fun way.  You need different types of animals depending on the sort of work that you do.

I always enjoy hearing Arthur describe these animals.  My personal favorite has to be the yak – I’ve worked with a few of them in my time and they are just wonderful so long as you keep them on a tight leash.  I winder if life for Arthur at Cadbury Schweppes is really like how Forrest Gump’s mother described a box of chocolates  – you never know what you gonna get.  Perhaps you never know what animal you might be working with!

See the Organizational Zoo website for more information on the different types of animals.

Arthur has also kindly provided a copy of his presentation