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Events
Tips sponsored
by Fresh Tracks - Team
Building That Works
Dos
and Don'ts
10
Innovative Ideas for Successful Team Building Events
Dos and
Don'ts
Team
building exercises and excursions can increase overall employee
performance, promote cooperation among team members and across teams,
enhance employee job satisfaction and help to broaden the understanding
of corporate goals and objectives.
They can also,
if improperly designed or administered, do nothing.
The events
you choose should serve as microcosms for the problems (and solutions)
your employees face.
Consider the
following Dos and Don'ts when planning your next team building session:
DO connect
the challenges of the events to the struggles your employees confront
daily.
The events you choose should serve as microcosms for the problems
(and solutions) your employees face. It's imperative then to define
these obstacles first. If a primary team challenge is, for example,
adapting to a new matrix-style organizational structure, then matching
exercises involving small, specialized teams working together to
achieve a common goal would be in order.
DON'T
create events that are too physically demanding for any team members.
Chances are that physical endurance, strength or dexterity are not
employee success factors on your team. Fitness and physical ability
should, then, typically not play a major role in your team building
events. Look carefully at the composition of your team and set the
level of physical assertion necessary low enough so that each team
member can participate satisfactorily. Physical activities, especially
outdoors, can be memorable and successful; just make sure everyone
can be included.
DO follow-up
on lessons learned. Even perfect exercise design and facilitation
doesn't guarantee results. It's vital that follow-up sessions are
scheduled to reemphasize and measure your teams' progress. Too often,
team building exercises are administered as single dose cure-alls.
Instead, they should serve as an opening ceremony for a continuing
drive towards success. To help quantify this success (and in turn
your ROI), choose objective performance statistics to compare against
historical data.
DON'T
create events that are too taxing or too mindless.
In an effort to ensure that employees have fun while completing
team building exercises, some fascinators make them too light and
sappy. Conversely some organizers create events that are unduly
draining, emotionally or otherwise. Try to strike a balance so that
your events aren't overly comical or overly difficult, as either
of these extremes will detract from the main messages of the events.
DO consider
hiring professionals to draft and administer your exercises. Depending
on your cost and time constraints, and the complexity of the exercises
you'd like to carry out, outsourcing the process may be a wise choice
for you. Professional consultants can help you identify what messages
you'd like to push through your sessions, facilitate the event (or
give you the tools necessary to do it yourself), and implement the
feedback and measurement components afterward. It's certainly worth
considering.
By
Chris Alfe
Thingamajob Staff Writer
10 Innovative
Ideas for Successful Teambuilding Events
Teambuilding can give a powerful boost to the spirit and effectiveness
of any group. Well designed and delivered teambuilding programs
can lead to better understanding, clearer alignment and much stronger
motivation.
Organizing a "teambuilding event" is a big responsibility.
Use these ideas to make your event a well-planned and memorable
success.
1. Set the Tone With an Inspiring Theme:
Telegraph the tone and purpose of your event with a theme that hits
the mark. "The Third Annual Teambuilding Program" is not
going to excite many participants. Here are examples of themes my
recent clients have to motivate and communicate their teams: "Rocket
to the Top, Together!" (for a software company seeking to achieve
dominant market share), "The Winning Team" (for a financial
services company seeking to overcome competitors and economic adversity),
"Forging a New Alliance" (for a medical services group
managing a reorganization of roles and departments).
2. Prime the Pump for Full Participation:
Use internal communications to get everyone interested and ready
for the event. Use memos, bulletin boards, posters and internal
meetings to arouse people's curiosity.
You might circulate a list of objectives and issues for the meeting.
You might conduct a survey prior to the meeting, announcing actual
results during the program. You might task certain individuals with
preparing a business presentation, or selected teams with creating
and rehearsing an entertainment item.
3. Conduct the Program Off-Site:
Major teambuilding programs are frequently conducted "off-site".
This allows participants to get away from the workplace physically
(minimizing disruptions) and mentally (opening their thinking to
new points of view).
4. Use a Mix of Energy, Enterprise and Entertainment:
Stimulate interest and get involvement by using a full range of
teambuilding activities. You may have "hard work" sections
with speeches about the future and workshops on current business
problems. You may have "play hard" sections with team
games and outdoor challenges. You may include social ingredients
through mealtime activities, awards and entertainment.
Be sure your range of activities are well-sequenced throughout the
day and evening. Be especially careful to follow lunches with activity,
and to end your program on a note of confidence and commitment.
5. Allow Enough Time to Process, Discuss and Apply
Allow enough time between each activity for discussion, learning
and application back to the job. It's better to have a full day
with two teambuilding games and enough time for discussion, than
a "stuffed" day with three or four games with little time
for reflection.
6. Focus on New Actions with "More", "Less",
"Start" and "Stop":
During the program, have participants develop clear answers to the
following questions:
" "What do you want (the other person, department, etc.)
to do more of?"
" "What do you want (the other person, department, etc.)
to do less of?"
" "What do you want (the other person, department, etc.)
to start doing?"
" "What do you want (the other person, department, etc.)
to stop doing?"
Towards the end of the program, participants can make another list
of personal commitments:
" "What am I committed to do more of?"
" "What am I committed to do less of?"
" "What am I committed to start doing?"
" "What am I committed to stop doing?"
7. Use Photographs and Video to Extend the Program's Impact:
Engage a photographer and/or videographer to document your teambuilding
program. Give copies of photographs to participants after the event.
Post the best photographs on your bulletin boards, in the cafeteria,
or publish them in the company newsletter. If you put them up on
your company's World Wide Web site, then staff's family members
can log-in and view them from home.
Have the videotape edited with music and some snappy graphics. Show
this short but entertaining vignette at another company meeting,
social gathering, dinner and dance, etc.
8. Harness the Power of Peripheral Players:
When selecting participants for your program, be willing to include
those tangentially related to the core group. Internal customers,
suppliers, neighboring departments, etc. can all yield a few participants
who are "closely related" to your core group.
These "peripheral players" will often add significant
value, perspective and insight to your program. They can also help
with communication back into the organization after the event is
over.
9. Get Personal:
Make sure everyone sees the link between "group teambuilding"
and "individual actions" on the job. Have each person
complete a commitment card, action planning list, personal promise
statement or some other vehicle to ensure application of appropriate
new behaviors. Closing a teambuilding program by having everyone
share their list is a good way to gain buy-in from individuals,
and the entire group.
10. Reward the Organizers:
Planning and preparing a teambuilding program is a major undertaking.
Be sure to give recognition to those who did the work "behind
the scenes". A small but thoughtful gift, given in front of
everyone at the end of the program, will be appreciated and remembered.
by Ron Kaufman
More
Information about the author: click
here for the Ron Kaufman Home Page
Copyright,
Ron Kaufman.
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