My Blazing Race Experience

Insular Life celebrated the Compliance Awareness Week (June 2-6, 2008) by holding, among other activities, “The Blazing Race (TBR)”.

 

TBR is our own version of the reality game The Amazing Race. For four days (June 2-5), it involved various physical and mental challenges and a working knowledge of the basic governance and compliance principles and rules (for example, relevant laws, government regulations, Company policies).

 

The race was conducted in our very own building and its surrounding areas. Five teams competed with each team composed of 8 players and 2 alternates. I was among our Operations Group’s 8 players, called the SOG Femmes (since we were an all-female team). Two players had to compete per day. The rules said, “All participants must be physically fit.” Whoa. I felt I was not qualified at all. First and foremost, I am not athletic and I am older than most of the participants. Most of them are among our sports fest players. But then I would like to think I was chosen not for my physical fitness, but more on the mental aspect. Ahem-ahem. Twelve years in Insular Life should make me, well, almost an expert in Company policies and industry regulations (wait, am I?).

 

Anyway, the worst part was I was chosen to be one of the two players who would compete on the last day. the Finale, when all the scores would be back to zero. It couldn’t be any worse when my original partner backed out due to health problems. By Wednesday too, we ranked 4^th. That meant we would be the 4^th team to depart on the final day’s race, which again meant the first 3 teams would have time advantage over us.

 

Backtrack to my pre-TBR preparation. Aside from feeding my mind every day with the Insurance Code of the Philippines, the Anti-Money Laundering Act, our Employee Code of Ethics, IT policies, and other pertinent materials given to us (the AMLA could be a cure for insomnia, believe me), I joined my officemates for a jog/walk around Filinvest. Alex also pushed me to jog/do some brisk walking with him around our village one Saturday evening.

 

Fast Forward to Today. But as they say, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” Our opponents may be young and physically able, but in the end, I’d like to believe again, that our strength was in our intellect. They might have outrun us (or me, especially), but if their answer was incorrect, they would have to do it again or return to the task area and try again.

 

Our last task was called “Face It”. The instructions said we were to match names with faces among a stack of materials. We were to arrange the names alphabetically. Initially, I thought the photos were of our Company officers (I know all 46 of them by heart). No sweat. When I pulled out the contents of the envelope, I saw the faces of our nine-man Board of Trustees. Man, I knew our Board (even their middle initials) like the back of my hand. Just one attempt and we got the nod from the checker. We were racing to the final pit stop like hell. We won first place. Wow. I think we were ahead of the 2^nd team by more than five minutes.

 

My partner Abi and I won for the Sales Operations Group P7,000 in cash and a glass trophy. For ourselves, we won a Figaro gift check, an eco-bag, and of course, the prestige that came with it. After all, we were the first Insular Life The Blazing Race champions.

 

Lessons Learned. Never underestimate:

• women power
• brains over brawn

Age does not matter.

And it pays to know the people you should know.