Oh No - Not another team building event!
Posted by Ronan McCabe on Wed, Jul 27, 2011 @ 04:37 AM
Do these words sound familiar? You're trying to get your team to communicate and work better together and when the word leaks out something is planned this is the feedback you get. What you're trying to do isn't unreasonable so what's with the negative feedback.
Well you can be pretty sure that it originates form a previous event and if so (in our experience) it was an event where the team had tasks and roles forced upon them. While it might be beneficial to see some team members out of their comfort zones it can create a negative attitude to the team building event and end up with the opposite outcome to what you hoped for.
So what's the solution? Well firstly start at the end and think about what you want to get out of this. Training & Developmental programs might be also necessary but in most cases team building events (the ones we provide anyway) are about getting everyone working together and improving communication. So bear in mind the following:
What do you want out of it?. If as we say above it's just about getting them mixing better then go for something that will produce that, don't over elaborate.
Mix it Up. Mix a more serous speaker or training game/ trainer with light hearted and fun team games, either as separate events or even over the course of a day.
Don't do too much. Either over a year or during an event don't bombard them, a few team events a year and a few hours over a day is enough.
Keep it simple. They don't all need to be big budget or lengthy events, short fun ice breakers can work great before a meeting and do the trick. At EventWorks we'll even send you on a free ice breaker game if you just email us for it.
Good Luck with the team building, life is serious enough so keep the team building fun.
