Team Building

Team Building…you’ve no doubt been involved in some form of this during your working life. Whether that be working together to build or create something, therefore encouraging team work and communication, or even a round of golf to get to know one another.

However, it’s important to consider what happened to you and your colleagues once you were back in the office, did you go back to your usual behaviour? Did you cooperate with your co-workers? Did the team building ACTUALLY WORK?! When planning the perfect team building activity it’s vital to consider various factors before looking at activities. Often managers plan a team building activity complete with bells and whistles, but without much thought or consideration to the end goal and objective, the result of which can lead to a risk of the manager losing the respect of the team by planning something totally unhelpful and irrelevant. Think about it, if your team are struggling to work together and get along, a highly competitive sports tournament may only further increase any divide between the group and friction causing them not to get along! Lack of consideration may also lead to team members remembering the day as little more than a nice trip out the office, with no real impact on the working environment. In order to hit the spot when it comes to the perfect team building activity, it’s important to consider why you and your team are taking part:

• Do they need to improve communication?
• Is there trust that needs building within the team?
• Does the morale of the team need a good old boost?
• Are you crying out for improved team work?

It’s also important to consider the frequency of your team building activities, often, these take place once or twice a year. However, in order to have real impact, team building needs to become part of the corporate culture of the business. With all of this in mind, there’s a plethora of team building options out there and with these guidelines applied, you will be able to identify your needs and select a team building option which really works for you and your business objectives.

Please let us know your thoughts below!