Knowhow: Team Builders | How to get your team to start acting like one
We have all seen the humorous television commercials with groups of employees engaged in activities created to build trust or develop better communication. From “honesty hats” to exercises that ask people to bark like dogs, the activities can often border on the ridiculous. Why do these “team builders” think this stuff works?
But teambuilding can work for your group and I’ll tell you why: the stronger our relationships, the stronger our overall team.
The more I live, the more I realize the importance of passion, attitude, leadership and discipline in life. And there are ways to develop stronger, more energized and more motivated teams of employees.
Experiential Learning
We learn more
effectively through action and visual observations than we do by verbal and written communication. So we, as mangers, need to be more effective in giving our staff opportunities to learn through experiences. By giving them a manual or even a video, they only take bits and pieces of that lesson. By giving them an opportunity to learn through participation, employees will learn and understand much more effectively.
Challenge your team to get to know themselves on a more personal level. The more comfortable we are the better our communication will be and the more effective we will be as a group. We are more willing to go the extra mile for those with whom we have a strong relationship. The stronger your groups’ relationship, the stronger your group will be.
An effective teambuilding event will help start this process. You need to give your groups a comfortable environment to get to know each other. The best teambuilding events will work to break down the communication barriers that exist between co-workers and will also aim to recondition a person’s expectation of what teambuilding is and how it can work.
Baby Steps
The best teambuilding events are ones that start simply and gradually build to include more challenging activities. The activities themselves are almost insignificant so long as the goal is to open up communication between co-workers. But remember to start simple. Climbing a rock wall or asking employees to bark like dogs most likely will scare people in the beginning, but those activities can be useful near the end of the day.
Most successful teambuilding activities are energetic and offer a degree of competition. You’re just trying to get people to work together. The goal is to get each individual’s personality to resonate.
The competitiveness of the activities will give people the initial motivation. From there the participants will begin to open up without thinking about how or why they’re communicating in new ways with their co-workers.
Teambuilding programs are a great place to start — the positive feeling that you and your team will have after an effective program will be the initial step that you will need to take to bring your team to the next level. But remember that most programs or activities are just a vehicle to start the process.
There is no magic wand. To see the full benefit of a teambuilding exercise, you must take the lessons learned and the open communication that was achieved and carry it through in your everyday business interactions going forward.
Bob Rojee is a regional manager at Teamworks in various Massachusetts and Rhode Island locations. He can be reached at brojee@twcenters.com.
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