We humans are extraordinary.
Hi.
We have these great big brains but we also have animal instincts
that drive us to behave in sometimes unpredictable ways.
My god! (screams)
I want to explore why we do what we do.
What makes us competitive?
Go on, Joe, that's 25 seconds.
Fearful. (Siren sounds)
(People scream)
And how much does sex lie behind our actions?
Where do you think my mouth is? Is that in there?
I'm Dr Michael Mosley and this grand country house
is going to host a series of unique events.
Forwards... (Clicks fingers)
I give up.
I've invited some unwitting guests
to take part in carefully constructed experiments,
cunningly disguised as everyday activities.
Oh my god!
They have no idea that actually
they're part of my human laboratory.
That was an emotional rollercoaster,
I mean, just watching it was an emotional rollercoaster.
Yes!
I'm joined by experts.
Together we eavesdrop every conversation
(Gasps) Did I?
analyse every move...
Everything I thought I would like to find, it has been found.
His heart rate is very high.
to reveal the real science behind human behaviour
before revealing all.
Hello!
Oh my god, I love him. Sorry.
Blimey, humans are odd, aren't they?
We are the most successful species on the planet
and that is partly because we are really good at working in groups,
in fact we are the only animal where you see real cooperation
outside the family unit.
But groups also have their downside.
They can be hotbeds of clashing personalities
and power politics.
So who gets to be top dog,
and when disaster strikes do we pull together
or is it a case of every man and woman for themselves?
I'm putting on a team building event
as a cover for an experiment on group behaviour.
My unwitting guinea pigs
are all colleagues at a small hygiene supplies company in Surrey.
Look at the house. Oh my God. That's amazing.
The joint owners of the company are Dave and Ollie.
In a crass way, we sell toilet roll for a living in large quantities.
We do hygiene washroom supplies as well.
Hi. How was your journey?
It was good. That's good.
Team building will be a great thing for Source
because we do have this natural, I don't know, split of personnel.
Where the drivers are out every day they don't see everything
that's going on in the office
and I think the office people don't really understand
the pressures and stress that the drivers have.
Oh my God, look at this house! It's pretty impressive, isn't it?
Is it haunted?
Have you been to a haunted house before? No.
You have now.
Stop it.
I'd love for some team building
to actually give our team an opportunity
to get to know a person better,
and I think, you know, it just helps gel the team.
We're all set. The team building exercise will start,
so if you can go into that room there through that door.
The staff think the cameras are for a documentary on team building
but the bosses know all about my secret plans.
The event is being run by two team building professionals.
I'd just like to introduce myself.
My name's Christina and this is Mark,
we're gonna be looking after you over the next couple of days.
Although Christina and Mark are genuine team builders,
just like Ollie and Dave, they know
I'm masterminding things from behind the scenes.
Okay.
We are really excited, I hope you are too?
Yes.
Some smiles there, enthusiasm, great.
Helping me study my human lab rats are Patricia Marks
who coaches groups in business to work more effectively,
and Dr Nadine Tchelebi,
a university lecturer in group dynamics.
What we're gonna be doing is just going through some activities
as the day goes on.
Give it 100% and hopefully you'll get sort of 100% back.
Are we all good to go?
Yes. Right okay, let's go outside.
The team builders' main objective
is to improve communication within the group,
yet oddly enough their first task is communicating without words.
This may well expose divisions between the office staff
and the warehouse and drivers.
Please let's do something with a tractor.
Claire, you're not gonna get to drive a tractor.
With five years' service at the company
Claire manages the office staff.
I'm completely honest,
so if somebody said "Does my bum look big in this?"
I would say "Yeah" purely because I'd expect the same in return.
I would like Stuart and Claire to come up to the front, please.
Fight, fight, fight!
Stuart manages the warehouse staff and the delivery drivers.
Me and Claire do similar roles, if you like,
Claire's got the girls that she looks after
and I've got the guys that I look after.
Me and Claire have, I don't know how you'd describe it,
a love-hate relationship sometimes I suppose.
Stuart and Claire are in a second gonna walk off
and come up with a special language
and your language is not allowed to involve any kind of words at all,
and you have to communicate with all these animals that have escaped
and we need to get them back into that white pen over there.
So what am I doing? Forwards. (Clicks fingers)
I reckon they sound too similar. (Claps)
That sounds too similar, d'you think?
No, it's fine.
After a hasty session devising a system of sounds,
Claire and Stuart are all set.
Animals, just to let you know we are starting from now.
Go.
She can't hear me. That's shit, that.
We'll clap to stop. (Claps)
Beep, beep, beep.
Beep's a word. We have to make a noise.
No, we can't shout beep, that's a word.
Beep, that's a sound.
So, I was the youngest of five, four girls and a boy.
I remember full-on fights as kids. Lots of teasing and rivalry.
He just looked down. Stuart, whistle.
He's not even... just goes forward.
Just fucking whistle, I can't whistle.
I suppose...
Stuart, I can't whistle.
the relationship that I have with Stuart could be like
the brother-sister annoying each other relationship.
We've got the most stupid rabbit in the world.
Welcome back to the pack, mate.
Can you shut the gate on that rabbit?
The divide between office and warehouse and drivers
rears its head in all sorts of ways.
Ah, birthdays... birthdays.
Yeah, I organise the birthdays.
Birthdays are like carnival day in the office, if it's your birthday.
I will get the card out and make sure everyone signs it
and go to the shop and get the balloons and decorate people's desks
and make sure they've got their favourite sweets.
If you're an office girl you get everything
but us drivers don't get nothing.
We generally just tend to decorate the desks of the office staff.
You get a signed card, no balloons.
We just forget, I guess. It's bad.
No confetti.
Have they said something?
Working in groups can be annoying and complicated
but at least when we get together
we develop that team spirit and we try harder.
That at least is the theory, but is it true?
What we're actually gonna do,
I don't know if you've worked it out...
is that we're gonna go for a tractor pull.
Everyone will pull the tractor individually
and then they will try it as a group.
This should show me how well the staff work together as a team.
There you go, Soph.
No, that's what I need after.
Oh, you need a massage after. Yeah.
The tractor's been fitted with a device that measures force
so we can see exactly how much effort each individual puts in.
Right, we're good to go. The brakes are off.
Wobble.
And... pull!
Stuart pulls hardest at a whopping 1000 newtons of force.
The average across the group is 608.
I think you should all have a go at once.
If we pull it on the grass what do we win? The tractor!
Now they're working as a group
no one can tell what each individual in contributing.
Pull! One, two, three, pull!
So, will team spirit kick in,
will they beat that average of 608 newtons?
I've just got the results.
Do you think they pulled harder individually, added up, or as a team?
Well, judged by their faces they pulled harder as a team.
I agree. I think they pulled harder as a team.
Okay. I'm very sorry to say they didn't.
There was a drop off in effort when they pulled together,
with the average contribution falling from 608 to 560 newtons.
It's an effect known as social loafing.
So, in research terms you would call that hiding in the crowd,
being able to hide the fact that you exert less effort
because it doesn't stand out if you don't do it.
Guys, give yourselves a round of applause. Well done.
Team effort there. Team effort.
Rather depressingly, what studies have consistently shown
is that if your individual performance is being measured
then you'll put in a wholehearted effort.
If, however, you are part of a group
there is a tendency to become a bit lazier,
really become what's known as a freeloader,
and the same is true of the animal kingdom.
A recent study found that the ideal wolf pack size is about four,
when it gets bigger than that
the other wolves sort of pretend to hunt
but really they're just there for the kill.
I'd like you all to stand on this plank if possible, please.
The next part of my team building experiment
is superficially about breaking down barriers.
If you can all face towards the window. Lovely.
But what I really want to find out is how this group see themselves
when it comes to the company pecking order.
Rank yourselves in order of seniority within the company.
To make it a challenge, no one is allowed to step off the plank
and everyone must be silent.
Starting from the most senior this end, please. Off you go.
Okay, don't rush it, do one at a time.
I always find it interesting looking at primates
how they know where they are in the hierarchy.
Given the divide in the office or in the organisation
between the warehouse workers and the office workers,
and also given what we saw earlier
it wouldn't surprise me if Claire goes in front of Stuart.
It's really important where you see yourself in a hierarchy.
Absolutely yes.
If you're a primate then your position is kind of dictated
by kind of aggression, by birth, by other things
and everybody else accepts it.
In a group, where you are in the pecking order really matters,
not just because of your sense of self-worth
but also because people who are lower status
also tend to suffer from more stress related diseases
and that's because they have less sense of control.
Um, I can hear some whispering, Stuart?
It's not from me, it was Emily.
All my subjects have been fitted with heart-rate monitors,
it's a rough measure of their secret stress levels.
Okay, so Stuart is finding this very uncomfortable.
Very uncomfortable.
Heart rate's gone up to 132, which is high.
At school I did find it difficult,
and I just became more and more disengaged with school.
They actually told me you'll never do nothing,
you'll struggle to achieve anything and that was almost like...
"I'm gonna show ya" moment that lodged in my head.
And when you think you're in the correct position
put your thumb in the air.
Believing you deserve a certain status gets you nowhere
unless it's coupled with the assertiveness to make it happen.
Stuart might secretly see himself as more important
yet in that situation he's not challenging Claire's position.
Do you think these things matter in organisations?
Do you think it matters what your title is and how clear it is?
It matters more than money.
People need to find out where they fit and what their role is
and it's amazing with little things that you can do
and somebody gets to go out of the office,
if that's their normal working environment,
and they get to go out on what is perceived to be a "trip"
it's amazing the reaction that will have with the rest of the group.
Blimey. Humans are odd, aren't they?
Everyone happy?
Do you believe that this is the order of seniority
within your organisation?
People could put me and Ollie the other way round,
could put Stuart and Claire the other way round
but I think we're in the right area.
Seniority brings perks.
In the animal kingdom it means more mates and better food
but battling your way up the ladder takes a physical and mental toll,
so some will settle for staying as they are.
Can't stand side by side, can we?
No, I can't be bothered to argue over a plank.
Don't make no difference to me.
Right, guys, if you just wanna come on through into the dining room.
Well, enjoy, it looks amazing.
Lunch is a rare chance for all the staff to eat together.
Very civilised.
I haven't seen Source this civilised ever, I don't think.
Isn't it weird that the lady was like
"I've just poked my head around the door, it smells delicious"
and it's a cold buffet?
And then she was like "The food's just got delivered"
and I thought, how did you smell that a minute ago if it's just been delivered?
Sophie has been with the company four years,
and is PA to the two bosses.
I'm not a manager or anything at work, I just do what I'm told.
I work with Ollie the closest, I would say.
He's always calling me and emailing me
and texting me, even asking me to do stuff.
Do you want to try a bit of kiwi?
Are you eating the skin again? Oh, you're such a freak.
He's always there as well.
If you ever need advice then it's good to have someone
and they can help you get through things
that you might not be sure about.
Marisa only joined the company five weeks ago.
she works on the road servicing washrooms
and hasn't had much chance to mix with the others.
I don't really know the girls in the office too much,
probably for them, me coming on board may be a bit like
"oh, I don't know."
They seem quite quiet
and obviously when I come in I'm quite loud.
But it's always hard when you've got a new person coming in, isn't it?
On the face of it the next activity is all about
sharing personal information to help the group bond,
but I actually wanted to see how a newcomer goes about getting accepted.
Is this place haunted? Not till after dark.
Right, what we're gonna do now
is Mark is gonna give you a pad and pen each.
Each person now has to say three things about themselves
but one will be a lie.
The others have to guess which.
So two absolute truths
but they have to be something that no one else will know about you.
We don't wanna know about gimp masks and everything else in wardrobes.
Oh. Oh, that's a shame.
When you've done it just fold your bit of paper over.
Marisa presumably wants to be accepted by her new colleagues
so she must weigh up carefully what to reveal about herself.
I'm not an interesting person. Can it be your phobias?
Yeah. Anything, anything.
I'm not boring, I've always got something to talk about.
My life's like EastEnders.
I think sometimes people are surprised,
they're more interesting than they think as well.
Right the first one is "I woke up in a skip one morning."
"I can count to 10 in Chinese.
"I won Tina Turner tickets
"and I've had a snake around my neck."
Clare was quite anodyne.
Yes, I think she's got good reason to do that because as a manager
she wants to control what kind of image she portrays
towards the people that she's managing.
Mine are rubbish. There's no such thing as rubbish.
"I play netball, I hate spiders and I love ghosts."
Laughter is a valuable side effect of this session.
It releases oxytocin,
a chemical associated with long-term bonding in humans.
Probably shouldn't say this cos people at work don't know,
but I'm a traveller.
Both my parents are full Romany gypsies
and obviously so is their parents and their parents.
Lovely, if you just stand back a little bit,
just so I can see Mark. Lovely, thank you.
"I compete at county level scurry driving."
What's that? What's scurry driving?
A horse and cart.
"I've posed as a nude model for an art contest.
"And I'm in a darts team."
Travellers get painted in a bad light
and it's like one bad lot paints a bad picture for the rest of us.
Unless you know one, you don't know.
You read what you read in the paper or see on the news.
Marisa, will you please reveal your lie?
The darts team. Ah, well, there you go.
Still-life drawing tonight, then.
Um, details, details. Nude?
It's just a friend, they were entering a picture
into an art contest and I posed nude, that was it.
Why did you guys think the second one was a lie?
What was the second one again? Nude.
Yeah, I didn't believe that.
Just thought that would be... it's quite a good lie.
It wasn't the right time to say who I was
purely because I didn't know them well enough,
how they would react and that's the only reason really.
Marisa played it safe, not disclosing her social roots.
But the nude modelling revelation was finely judged,
enough to make her memorable but not too shocking.
Research shows that sharing brings people closer together,
but oversharing can backfire.
Right, how are we all doing there? Lovely, everyone comfortable?
No team building weekend, bogus or otherwise,
is complete without a motivational speaker.
I've arranged a very special one.
The guy's called Simon.
In the world of team building and motivation
he's one of the best in the country
and he's agreed to do this afternoon.
Here he is. Well, a big-up, Simon. Big it up.
We all like to believe we think for ourselves
but numerous studies have shown the effects
of hierarchy and group pressure.
Over to you, Simon.
Thank you, yeah, great to meet you all.
As they said, my name's Simon.
I've pretty much spent the last 25 years travelling the world
giving speeches like this, talking to people about
how to get motivation in business, that's basically what I'm about.
Simon is a fake motivational speaker.
He'll be issuing completely ridiculous orders.
I want to see just how far they will follow his lead.
Source... Source Supplies.
Can you tell me, it might seem bonkers,
can you tell me any similarities between source and sauce?
Are they buying it? I think so.
Right, can I have a volunteer? Soph.
Sophie? Up you come. I want you to take that bottle of sauce.
Hold it up. Okay, I want you to pull the cap off.
I want you to pour it out. On the floor?
Yeah. Really? Pour it out.
(Gasp)
Really? Yeah, get it all out.
That's a horrible noise.
In business sometimes if you do something big
you can't always undo it.
Please could you put the sauce back into the bottle.
Oh no... I can't.
Every time you've gotta do something big you need to think about
what you're gonna do, thinking about the consequences.
Has anyone got a tissue because, um...
I didn't really expect you to tip all of that out.
Oh, it's fine, um, do you wanna just... maybe we'll just...
We could just cover it up. What the heck am I doing?
Let's give Sophie a big clap, well done.
Squirting ketchup around is a bit of harmless fun
but what it demonstrates is the power that authority figures
have to make us do things which we wouldn't normally do.
In the 1960s, a psychologist called Stanley Milgram
famously proved it was possible to take ordinary people
and get them to give other people apparently lethal electric shocks
simply because they were asked to do so.
What is motivation?
There's a saying that I like to think of
which says a river cuts through a mountain...
I'm confident in my own opinions,
I'm not gonna change my opinion cos someone else don't like it.
We may think we're strong willed...
Can I have a volunteer? Felix?
But as well as obeying authority figures
we're prone to being carried along by the rest of our group.
This water is moving, around freely
but the glass is containing the water
therefore the glass is stronger than the water,
would you agree? Yeah?
Oh. No. Try it.
Felix just do it, it's really important that you feel this.
What, smash it?
Greig, yeah, up you come, and Stuart.
Smash it, smash it. Really? Health and safety.
She's really discontented about that, Marisa. Yeah.
Beforehand we had a glass, now we have glass.
What about the water, it's still water?
It's retained its defying characteristic.
In business are you gonna be the glass or the water?
Water. Water, be the water.
Mahatma Gandhi used to say
be the change you want to be in the world.
Say it with me.
(ALL) Be the change you want to be in the world.
Again. (ALL) Be the change you want to be in the world.
Oh, they actually do it. Marisa as well.
Be the change you want to be... Can you stand up? Stand up.
Be the change you want to be...
Louder. Be the change...
I am surprised. No, they're doing it, no way.
He's got them back, he's got them back. Wow.
Be the change... Come on, Mark. I say bog, you say roll.
Bog... Roll!
I say odour, you say control. Odour...
Control!
I say toilet, you say brush. Toilet...
Brush!
I say waste, you say management.
Waste... Management!
He's really got them now. He's really got them.
Pump, pump, unblock the toilet.
Go! Pump, pump, unblock the toilet. Pump, pump...
Look at Sophie, she loves it.
Come on, Stuart. Pump, pump, unblock the toilet.
Look at that face.
Stuart, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
He really is thinking this is complete and utter bullshit.
Squeeze the bleach, squeeze the bleach.
Come on, Jake...
Come on, make a conga.
Join on, make a conga, join on.
You see, I can never quite believe it
when I see these conformity experiments, they're going to work.
And yet they do work,
that we are vastly more conformist than we would ever imagine.
I say waste, you say disposal...
And it went as a sort of a wave through the room.
Okay, I'm joining in, I'm joining in, okay.
I have to because now we've got more than half joined in.
Disposal, waste...
I know about this stuff but I'm just utterly shocked.
You all pushed yourselves out of your comfort zones, yeah?
Yeah. Completely.
There was scepticism on all of their faces and one after the other
it just disappeared and they just brainlessly joined in.
Joined in.
Give yourselves a big round of applause. Well done.
Thank you very much. Good night.
(All) Bye-bye, Simon.
Did you enjoy that? What the hell was that?
Research suggests that the urge to conform
is linked to a part of the brain
known as the posterior medial frontal cortex.
When you behave differently to the rest of the group
this part of the brain seems to send out messages
to other parts of the brain
saying that you need to change your behaviour.
Okay, guys, thank you very, very, very much for taking part.
Just mind the glass, guys.
Who's been chucking glass about and throwing ketchup everywhere?
My tests so far pale in comparison to what's coming next.
Ollie is about to drop a bombshell.
What he is about to say will disturb the harmony of this group
and I want to see how they react.
Okay, so I've got a little announcement to make.
I hope you're all happy with it but we'll see.
I am going to have a little break.
I'm gonna go on a six-month sabbatical to the States,
I'm just gonna live in California for a bit.
Obviously the business can't really run in its entirety without me
so we're just gonna help that process
by bringing in another person for the interim period while I'm away.
We've been speaking to quite a few people
and we've got it down to a couple of candidates
and there's a process which is really popular in the States
called collaborative hiring,
and we're gonna invite you guys into the process
to make sure that we get the right person for the job by you guys.
So it's a kind of team selection process. Okay.
So, we're just gonna briefly meet the two candidates, Dom and Paul.
I'm shocked.
Don't really know what's going on.
I don't know whether to cry...
He's having a six-months' break, he's not dying.
I know, but this is so serious.
As a relative outsider,
Marisa's less wedded to the existing group hierarchy
than long-serving staff like Sophie.
It's nice of you to value our opinions, actually.
And good luck, mate. Thanks.
For most, the upheaval and lack of control over their fate
is extremely stressful.
I really don't know what's going on.
You really didn't know, Claire?
No, none of us know. Why would I know?
It's all right.
Yeah, that's cool, okay.
Right. We'll go and introduce...
I don't know what's wrong with me.
That was an emotional rollercoaster,
I mean, just watching it was an emotional rollercoaster.
I don't know about you but, ohh, wow, blimey.
I think the way he told everyone,
I just felt he should have told me before or privately
instead of announcing it the way he did, it was kind of a shock.
Yeah, just wanna come in. This is Dom and Paul.
Hello. Hi...
These guys are gonna be with you tomorrow.
We're gonna get totally stuck into team building.
We're gonna just shoot off for a bite to eat shortly
so we'll see you in a bit. Cool.
Is that all right? Bye.
I don't know what's happened. I don't know why I'm crying.
It's just a bit of a shock.
Ollie's announcement has provoked a much bigger emotional response
than either he or I was expecting.
The team must now pull themselves together and get on with the task
of choosing between short, dark Dom and tall, blonde Paul.
We've got two names, Paul and Dom, which team d'you wanna be on?
I don't even know who was who. Paul was the one the suit fitted.
Paul's the young one, the tall one.
But we don't know them.
No, it's just... I'll tell you now
everyone'll look at Dom and think "I'll go with Paul".
Can I make a suggestion, let's just do this
and then we can go and have some food, a bite to eat.
Can I be a right pain in the arse? I'll do it first.
In fact, Ollie's not really going away
and Dom and Paul aren't real job candidates,
I'm simply testing how groups react to new leaders.
We've asked them to vote
based on their first impressions of Dom and Paul.
Thank you. Interesting.
Number one, a spoilt paper, they've ticked both.
Number 2, crosses, spoilt, spoilt,
spoilt, spoilt, Paul...
Good looking guy, gets one.
Paul gets another, Paul gets another,
Paul. Four.
This was kind of an act of aggression wasn't it? Rebellion basically.
So, two-thirds of the team refused to engage in the task.
Okay, and the ones who did engage all went for Paul.
For the moment,
their real focus is on trying to make sense of Ollie's announcement.
They have been sorting out all the passports
and the visas for America cos I've been printing them off.
Oh, actually if it's genuine I actually think that's...
for them to actually think, d'you know what, guys...
We'll get you involved...
I think that's good.
If it's true I'm really shocked about it.
I'm 80% sure that it's not true. I don't know, to be fair.
And he couldn't look at me, Ollie couldn't look at me.
We'll be okay.
I'm kinda pleased for him if it means that he's gonna be happy
and stress-free, if you like.
Yeah, it's good for him if it's true, if it's actually happening...
I think it's happening, I don't think it's a fib.
Thank you, Mark, cheers.
You okay, babe? Yeah, I'm fine.
I just... Yeah, all right.
You know, I hope it's not true. Thank you.
The twist that we had with the deceit
of Ollie going on a sabbatical
turned into a lot of a bigger deal than we thought it would be.
Under stress, the group is coming together,
they are transforming into a type of family unit.
I think as a team they've demonstrated
a real family style of behaviour
in the fact the older members of the family
are looking after the younger ones and saying "It's gonna be okay,
"we can sort this out."
It's a family, they're a family.
The disruption of the group is uniting colleagues
in a new and powerful way,
but they're still confused about Ollie's departure.
How can he afford to take six months off work?
That's what makes me think it's a bit of a joke.
I think what's interesting about human beings
is their ability to hold
two irreconcilable positions at the same time.
This is known as cognitive dissonance.
This group have heard Ollie say "I am going"
but part of them doesn't believe it
so what they're gonna do from now on is pull together fragments,
look for clues and hints,
something which will help them resolve this contradiction.
Ollie has just done his ex...
planned his extension with his architect.
But that might be why he's moving out as well
so they can crack on and do the building work.
They'll have no one living there, will they?
While some are completely bewildered,
others feel a powerful sense of betrayal and anger.
This has been a day of surprises.
I started off thinking that a work place is different to a family
because you are strangers
but in a funny way, particularly towards the end,
it felt much more like you had brought grief onto a family,
and that bombshell at the end,
that really did agitate them in a much more profound way
than I guess I'd been expecting,
so tomorrow... tomorrow's going to be very interesting.
After a long night of emotional turmoil
worryingly, hardly anyone turns up for breakfast.
I ain't got time for all them dramas.
A pot of tea to meself.
Eventually the others come down
and the main objective of the day begins,
selecting a new boss.
Do this one, two, three thing again. Okay.
Someone else call it, who wants to call it?
One, two...
The staff are split into competing groups
to learn plate spinning and get to know Dom...
and Paul.
It's a chance for me to see how they form opinions
about their would-be leaders.
Last night Paul was voted top dog in the ballot
even though no one had had more than a glimpse of him.
Now do it on your noses. I like that.
He was benefiting from something known as the halo effect.
We tend to assume that someone with positive characteristics,
being tall and suave like Paul
will also have other good traits like being a great leader.
Everyone spinning? 10 seconds.
Last night's first impression
is being reinforced by the group success with this task.
You guys are good.
Oh, yeah.
By contrast, Dom really doesn't look like a classic leader
and his group struggle with the task won't help.
Yeah, I think a band.
Right, how do I...
Anyone want this one?
D'you know what, I'm done, I give up.
As far as our groups are concerned
the next task is all about being creative
but in fact I've asked our two would-be leaders
to behave in some subtly different ways.
We're gonna do a team game which involves having a flag.
I've asked Dom to be a good leader by being flexible
and attuned to what makes his group tick.
You are gonna be in our ship's crew,
you need to come up with a slogan, a ship's name and an emblem.
By contrast, Paul will be a bad leader,
someone who only issues orders.
Who's good at art? I did art at school.
Did you? Bang.
So, what Paul is trying to do in the moment
is to be a bit more authoritative.
Next up, team names.
Panthers. Super Parrots.
But that's not a great name as a team. Parrot Troopers.
I just like panthers cos it's like strong.
It's so hard to think of a name...
Write anything down, just write a name down. I agree.
Write your favourite football team, just get something on the table.
I was thinking Pirate Panthers.
I think Paul's team has got all of the alpha males in,
the potential alpha males. Yeah.
Panthers... panthers, is good.
This team is used to a rather collaborative leadership style.
My gut tells me that that's what they'll respond to better.
So, what would our pirate ship be called? The Pink Rose?
The Pink Rose.
Are you guys happy with Pink? Yeah, the Pink Rose.
Dom is trying to be more collaborative,
draw people into decision making, try to bond with them.
And they're really getting together as a team
and they're enjoying being with him.
Yeah! High fives all round.
Yeah, that looks really good.
Dom's group are slowly seeing beyond the first negative impressions
while Paul's still getting away with simply looking like a boss.
I'm gonna see if I can dislodge Paul's halo with the next task.
It's called Trust Fall because in this exercise
you fall over backwards and trust that someone will catch you.
While they're doing that,
I've asked Paul to deliberately disengage
and let's see what effect that has on our group.
I don't like it.
Dom is being completely trustworthy. Three, two, one.
But Paul's a different story.
If the catchers wanna count three, two, one when you're ready.
(Phone rings)
Christina, I've gotta take this, I'm sorry.
D'you wanna do it next...
No, I've just gotta do this quickly, sorry.
And now he's run off.
As Paul leaves to deal with a pretend phone call,
Stuart seizes the chance to create an alliance
that excludes his potential new boss.
What we're gonna do, from this moment onwards
we're gonna do exactly what us five wanna do with our team.
I just thought, I'm not having you winding people up.
They don't like you, they're not interested in you,
you're not forcing yourself on them, I'll keep you out of it.
The next task involves sorting jellybeans.
Neither group knows there's an almost unlimited supply of sweets to sort.
Thank you, guys.
And this is really a test of their bond
with their new would-be bosses.
They're really concentrating.
I have to say, in this instance Dom's team are really getting on with it
they seem remarkably fired up.
The other lot are kind of,
they're not doing anything, are they?
Seems that this is the first crack we see to the halo effect.
Long-distance catch. Watch that chandelier.
Let me try. Stuart's displaying...
It's interesting how swiftly it turns round, isn't it?
Because five minutes ago I'd have put all the money on Paul's team.
We should all have a colour. I don't understand what we're doing.
Just pick out a colour. What colour d'you wanna be?
Paul's betrayal during the Trust Fall exercise
has undermined his position as a boss.
If anyone, Stuart has now taken control.
We're not doing lunch, we're just playing with sweets.
I'm staying here for the whole lunch hour,
I'm gonna go and have a fag, I'm gonna come back and carry on.
What's interesting, the others are all falling in.
None of them are going, don't be an idiot, Stuart.
Yeah. You're right, yeah.
The group's got some searching questions for Paul.
So, Paul, where you from anyway?
I was born in Manchester.
Come on, Paul, multitask, talk...
Where were you working before, Paul?
At the moment I'm freelancing as a... I do seminars, yeah?
I knew something was going on at that point but hadn't quite...
hadn't quite settled on exactly what it was.
Where d'you go with Dave and Ollie yesterday?
We went to an Indian. Mmm! What did you have?
It's called murgh dhaba, or a dhaba murgh.
Dhaba murgh. Tava burg.
Marisa's passing it to... Pauline. Paul.
How long have we got to do this?
Pauline, you're meant to be a doer, not a whinger.
For Marisa and the rest of the group, Paul has lost all authority,
it's Stuart who is now the undisputed leader.
Where are the other team? They're in the bar.
With Paul deposed from power,
Stuart is now passing round secret messages.
Stuart is now writing something on a piece of paper
that he's gonna show to the others, and he's gonna try and conceal it
because he's looked outside and seen buckets of jellybeans
and he's fed up now.
It was just such a pointless, stupid thing to ask us to do
and we just thought, d'you know what,
if you want us to be ridiculous, I'll be ridiculous.
Shall I go get the other bowls? Yeah, go fetch the other bowls.
There's loads of 'em.
Many jellybeans later, Paul's left behind
while a select few gather for what they think is a discreet conversation
and a burning question.
Did you go out for a meal together last night?
Yeah, we did. Where did you go?
We went to the Toby Carvery...
Did you? I sort of misunderstood, Paul said that you went for a curry.
Yeah, an Indian.
Sorry, I obviously misunderstood that one. Sorry, man.
What type of curry was it? You knew. He had a tava... tava murgh.
Tava Murve, yeah.
The curry-versus-carvery gaff has ripped a massive hole
in Paul and Dom's cover story.
Sorry, we don't think it's real, we think it's fake
and we reckon it's a whole thing on first appearances,
"judge a book by its cover"
cos Dave and Ollie weren't allowed here last night
cos they knew that we'd grill them and ask so many questions.
My human lab rats have had their suspicions for a while,
rejecting Paul and uniting against being manipulated.
I think my experiment has now been well and truly rumbled.
Time to come clean with everyone.
Thank you, everyone, for being such fantastic team players.
It's been an eventful couple of days.
To make sense of all of this we have one more speaker
who would really like to meet you.
Please welcome Dr Michael Mosley. Hello. Hello, hi there.
How's things?
I've actually been watching all of you in a little sort of porta-cabin
back there in company with two other people.
This is Nadine and this is Patricia
and they're both experts in how teams operate
and I just wanted them to give you a bit of feedback
on kind of what we noticed about you all.
I'm gonna talk about Claire, first and foremost,
and it was interesting, Claire, that whenever there was a real stres
you were right there for your team.
I am naturally a mother hen.
I just think your upbringing makes who you are
and mine's very much family,
supportive in good and bad times.
Stuart.
(All laugh and cheer)
Look at that face!
You have shown a very great sense of loyalty.
We just have one question, we're really burning to know,
what was on that note that you passed around?
I think I've got it in my pocket. I've got it in my pocket!
We went looking for it.
Yeah, I kept it cos I guessed you might.
"I say we do this all day now. Fuck them."
To sum up the last few days, there's been some difficult times
and some good times.
I do feel that my relationship with some of the members of staff
has improved, kinda gained a bit more respect for them,
wanna listen to them a bit more
and feel that I can get on better with them.
Sophie, everybody needs somebody like you in their team.
I know that if I were in your team and I would be in trouble
I could count on you. Oh, thank you.
I've learnt that I am a lot more able than I think I am.
My team that I work with always have my back
and they're always very supportive of me
and I think that we've got a really good relationship.
As you have probably worked out by now,
Ollie isn't going anywhere.
What? Does that mean you were an actor?
That's so mean. What?
Who is a little bit surprised they're actors?
I am cos I'm bloody naive, obviously.
My remit was to be negative, someone who doesn't pull his weight
and stuff like that,
and essentially I thought that would stop you...
any team I was in... would stop you winning.
And more often than not
that team actually just managed to block that character out.
You've all shone, basically,
and it's heart-warming for Dave and I to see
but last night we were in pieces and it was really difficult for us
knowing that you guys were struggling as well.
It's been a stressful experience, I would say, for the last two days
but I do believe that we have grown as a team
and being put out of your comfort zone
does get you closer together.
We are a family really and that's become massively evident
and so we felt like the parents were then leaving.
I just wanna say on behalf of me and Dave, thanks for taking part.
Sorry I made you cry, Soph. I'm so sorry.
This event has created shockwaves that none of us foresaw
and it will take some time for things to settle,
but my hope is that good will eventually come from it.
What's very clear to me, listening,
you are a closer team at the end of this experience
and I have to say, I thought you responded magnificently to it.
It was really quite moving. So, thank you very much.
When this group first came here
I didn't get the impression they were exactly brimming with team spirit.
But when crisis came they bonded together
and I think that shows just how powerful,
unpredictable and complicated group behaviour really is.
Captions (c) SBS Australia 2017