On a grey and rainy Friday afternoon, the Mercedes teams set out, hoping to be spared by the next rain shower. Following the adage "the more the merrier," they organized themselves into large groups with ten players per team. They started at their office situated next to the East Side Gallery, a remnant of the Berlin Wall known for its stunning street art murals.
Naturally, the teams selected this location for the "Stories of Places" challenge, where they were tasked with finding a historically significant spot in the city and positioning their team there. The photos they uploaded for this challenge vividly portray either a desire to demolish walls or attempts to scale them.
It was delightful to see how all the teams confidently approached strangers in the streets. As it was a rainy day and street musicians were scarce, one team got creative. They met a group of Scottish guys in kilts in front of the train station and asked them to play some impromptu music. This was so they could complete the "Perform with a Street Musician" challenge. The men in kilts began drumming on their suitcases and the team danced among them.
The teams dashed through the challenges faster than the speediest cars produced by their company. I was astounded when "Fischkoppe" completed all the challenges with 15 minutes still left on their clock! My surprise grew when two more teams, "Minnie Mäuse" and "Nutella," also finished all the challenges. Thus, three out of the four teams scored the high score of 95 points in this edition.
When the teams returned from their adventure, still full of energy, I knew then that Mercedes Benz is home to high-performing teams. However, as the Game Host, this created a dilemma for me during the awards ceremony: which team should receive the winner's trophy?
After some discussion, the department lead, who I hadn't recognized as being part of one of the teams, suggested a Solomon-like solution of awarding the trophy to all teams. This decision highlighted the idea that good leaders often stay somewhat in the background, stepping forward for crucial decisions when needed. As a result, the collective's excellent performance was celebrated.
