Two Brits, an Hungarian and a Kiwi walk into a pub… It’s charity quiz night at the local pub and it turns out arriving on time meant we were late to the party. Only 4 seats left. We looked at each other and formed a team on the spot.
Strangers only minutes before we were soon signed up as the Atomic Kittens (don’t ask me) and getting down to the serious business of ordering some healthy snacks (pizza and burgers) and some cognition enhancing beverages, all the while learning a little about each other in the process.
By the end of the evening, we knew even more. Nioce was born the year the Berlin Wall came down, me the year of the first moon landing, Kevin had an encyclopaedic knowledge of Disney Films and Clive a better knowledge of NZ rivers than his kiwi wife (that would be the geologist in him). We had a range of different upbringings in different countries, wildly divergent interests, and an age range of 30+ years. This, it turned out, was quite the advantage.
By the end of the night, we found ourselves only a couple of points behind the eventual winners. We laughed at that. If only we hadn’t second guessed ourselves on a couple of questions and gone with our first instincts (Goodbye Pork Pie did finish in Invercargill). If we hadn’t deferred to each other on local knowledge questions – like the longest bridge in NZ (I redeemed myself with the rugby question – phew) we would have come out on top.
That said, I reckon we did alright. Not only had we made a couple of new friends, we had out-performed previous results of one of the Kittens who, it turned out, was a regular quizzer.
What had made the difference?
5 lessons from quiz night
- Together we did much better than either couple could have done alone. Our only regular quiz goer said we had outperformed their usual result by some measure.
- Differences made the difference. We had international and local knowledge. We had a big age range of lived experience, professional backgrounds and personal interests.
- We listened – no one was competing to be in charge or right. All of us had written answers on the sheet at different stages and in different languages (I give you kenguru – the national animal of Australia).
- We were genuinely interested in each other’s interpretation of the questions – we heard different things and had to decide what exactly the questions were getting at. Our answers were better because we had more ears and minds working together.
- Trust your instincts –we didn’t always. Possibly politeness and too much humility? When we didn’t back ourselves, we should have. There’s a tension to be balanced there.
I can’t wait for another chance for the Atomic Kittens to quiz together. It was a blast.
Look out for chances to collaborate with others even in small prosaic ways. You might be surprised what you learn.
*Acknowledging here that Kevin was right about the Disney Film and the quizmaster wasn’t.
©Ann Braithwaite 2024
