“All event organizers are collaboration artists,” says David Adler, founder and CEO of BizBash, a Web-based source of information, innovation and insights for meeting and event planners. “You have to give people permission to collaborate and talk to each other. You can make pin the tail on the donkey a fantastic teambuilding event if you plan it right.”
BizBash writer Mitra Sorrells recently spoke with four teambuilding specialists and shared their tips for extending the value of teambuilding beyond the event itself.
Create a long-term plan. Don’t view a teambuilding activity as a one-time event. “Teams that like each other and get together on a regular basis are more excited about working, because they like the people they work with,” says Lisa Jennings, chief experience officer at teambuilding company Wildly Different. “Do teambuilding on a continuous basis so people know you are committed to it and are committed to them getting to know each other as people, especially in this day and age when we all sit in cubicles and exchange emails and do virtual conferences.”
Capture the event with photos and videos. “Those pictures and videos are the memories of us bonding together,” says motivational speaker and corporate trainer Dave Fleming. “Relationships are everything at the office. When you have that, you can draw back to it.”
Debrief after the event. Use internal facilitators to lead a discussion driven by questions: What was the most interesting or surprising part of this activity? How was the level of cooperation? How will what we learned affect our performance? Are there suggestions for improvement for our next teambuilding activity?
Share lessons learned through e-newsletters, internal message boards or bulletin boards. “If you think of the organization as a community, communities have stories. And stories are the things that weave the social fabric of the organization…so you get better results, so that then the organization flourishes and people within the organization flourish,” says Jim Willis, president of Executive Edge, which provides organizational change consulting services.
Show that teamwork is important in a variety of ways. “Prioritize teamwork at group meetings and individual performance appraisals. That way, you show that building a team is a priority of mine as a leader and that’s always something we discuss. Not just once a year at an all-employee meeting,” says Dave Mitchell, owner of the organizational consulting firm the Leadership Difference.
Keep the competition going. If your teambuilding activity involved competition among groups of employees, consider maintaining those teams throughout the year and encouraging that competition. “People like to win. If you can keep those teams together and get a little friendly rivalry going within your department or company depending on the size, that’s a lot of fun,” Fleming says. “Sometimes you will need somebody in a tough spot in a business situation and to have that to draw on is really unparalleled for what you can get done.”
BizBash.com provides ideas that make offsites more memorable.
