Team Building Exercises - Choosing the Right One
Copyright 2006 Sandstone Limited
When a prospective new client calls us up and expresses an
interest in team building, we ask a simple question - what do
you want to achieve out of it? You might be surprised at how
many people don't have an answer. After a short pause, we might
get a reply along the lines of "well, we want it to be fun..."
and then it tails off again.
If you don't know what you want from a team building event, you
shouldn't be surprised if you don't get it. Of course, you might
get lucky and hit upon the right activity to deliver the
outcomes you needed even if you didn't realise that you wanted
them at the time. You might win the lottery next week as well -
but it is probably best not to plan for it though. Ah - "plan".
Now there's an idea...
All good plans start with the desired end result. What is it
that you are trying to achieve? Before you select a team
building activity, you probably want to have two types of goal -
session and longer term. The latter should help make it plain
where the former sits in the development process. That is, a
team building session needs to be happening for a reason and
have a defined role in moving you towards what you are trying to
achieve overall. The session goals should be measurable and
understood by the team's management, the team and the activity
provider. That is, a team building session needs to achieve its
part in the development process.
You'll notice that I haven't mentioned the activity itself yet.
That's because choosing it comes last on the checklist. Once you
know what you want it to achieve, then you can set about finding
the activity that best delivers against your criteria. Yet all
too often people start with an idea of what they want to do
rather than what they want to achieve.
For example, a surprisingly common opening comment to us is "In
a previous job I went on a treasure hunt and I think it'd be
good for my new team to do the same". When asked "why?", the
answer is usually "well, it was fun". That's fine if fun is the
only thing that you are looking for, but it seems such a waste
when it is possible to combine fun with something that also has
a point to it. Something that improves the team rather than just
placates it.
If we ask "would you like to bring the whole team closer
together?" and the answer is affirmative then an activity that
is naturally competitive such as a treasure hunt strikes us as a
bad idea. Similarly, taking people to naturally individual
activities such as quad-biking or clay pigeon shooting isn't the
best way to illustrate how to make the team more effective.
So what are the key elements in selecting the right activity? My
experience suggests the following four components:
1) It should be relevant to the group. For example, if the team
is office based, they will struggle to see the relevance of
climbing mountains back in the workplace - as much as they might
enjoy it.
2) It should require the same kind of skill sets and team
approaches that are necessary for the group's real work. For
example, if you want a team to develop their decision-making
skills to improve their effectiveness at work, it needs to have
strong elements of decision-making within it.
3) It should be fully inclusive. That is, all team members need
to be enthused by the activity. Activities are sometime chosen
by a clique within the team to their own preferences and this
can actually split a team rather than build it if their idea of
heaven is one or more colleagues' vision of hell.
4) It should have a proven track record in delivering the kind
of outcomes that you are looking to achieve. Or you need to
trust the deliverer implicitly if it is a new activity.
Now that sounds like the makings of a plan.