HomeNewsCareerZOT Blog Naked and Afraid At Work

Go Back To Events

Naked and Afraid At Work

Naked and Afraid At Work

by Kathy Seaton

Naked and AfraidHave y’all ever seen the show Naked and Afraid? If you haven’t seen it, watch it, its hilarious. It’s on the Discovery Channel. It’s the typical reality TV format where two people show up naked (not so typical) and have to survive in the wilderness for 21 days with no food, water, or shelter. At the 21-day mark, if they make it to the extraction point they win the challenge. And I wonder, for being naked in the forest for 21days, what could I really win? Some silly f’n medal? Send me to Dancing with the Stars and pair me with Derek Hough.

So imagine experiencing this whole naked thing at work. No clothes, no water, no food. But, the silver lining (I guess) is that you can bring one item with you. What would you bring? Smith and Wesson comes to mind.

This whole thing is seriously my worst nightmare. I have bad dreams about being naked in front of a conference room of people at work all of the time.

So this is the breakdown of what ties the dynamic of Naked and Afraid to a work situation.

  1. Everyone wears the same uniform
  2. The macho loner still exists
  3. Chicks still get cramps, ahem
  4. The women believe that the guys still marginalize the girls
  5. Animosity is at is greatest
  6. The unknown is REALLY scary
  7. Lunch isn’t served at noon
  8. Females will find each other
  9. The dudes can’t catch the big fish
  10. Competitors must master their environment, or tap-out

Sound like your office? Thankfully I don’t experience much of this at work. But its kind of a cool way to think about being stripped down of everything you have in your arsenal at work. What do you do without your mobile device, your laptop, and a cup of brew from Starbucks?

It might be interesting to do a team exercise based on this premise. Pair people, isolate them, give them a problem, and have them come up with a unique solution, using nothing other than brainpower. No fancy suits, no technology, no research, no diagrams, no excel charts. And each player can bring one item with them to the game—anything that they think can help them survive the challenge.

By being naked, and potentially afraid, great, unadulterated ideas may come.