Posts for tag: Team Building

Is team building over 2000 years old?

The theories behind team building could be a much older than originally thought.  In fact Plato may have been  the first ever team building expert!

For some years we’ve been saying “teams that play together, work together” and it seems that although team building is thought to be a comparatively new addition to business training Plato, one of the world’s most influential philosophers, had a similar view over 2000 years ago; “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation” Plato
 
So we’d encourage you to make time to play with your colleagues this week, take a ball to the park, eat ice cream in the afternoon or play darts at lunchtime – whatever you think would be fun.  We spend most of our waking lives with our colleagues so let’s enjoy it.

Team Building vs Team Development

Travel budgets slashed, bonuses unlikely, the prospect of redundancies.  Now is probably not the time to ask for cash to fund the annual team building day but it might be the precisely the right time for some team development.

The phrase team building has risen in prominence in recent years as employers realised the value of a happy workforce where, despite their differences, team members are able to get along.  For many, team building is simply about getting away from the office for a celebratory meal, drink or day out and there is some value in this.  It creates a social context and allows colleagues space to become friends.

In the same way that a builder differs from a developer in the property world, team development is similar but distinctly different.  Builders will turn up and build a wall, whereas a developer sees the potential for that wall to become a terrace of houses.  Team development is a process in which a team takes time to explore its potential – how it can become greater than it’s been before….

Is Team Building a Luxury?

An article recently published by Harvard Management Publishing looked at team building in economically uncertain times and concluded that “it’s in times like these that team building activities are most needed.”

Pat Olsen, in the Harvard Management Update, writes that: “Chances are, anyone who has worked for a corporation has suffered through at least one irrelevant or embarrassing team building exercise. But team building activities aren’t limited to trust falls and paint ball. Used wisely, they can improve morale, foster cohesiveness, increase motivation, and focus a team on a problem. The best ones also give employees insight about their organization.”

Read the Harvard Management Update article in full.

Does “team building” work?

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal* suggested that while team-building exercises may be fun (for some people), they really don’t do much to solve workplace issues.

For example, sales executive Paul Garvey claimed that the most insightful team-building exercise he ever participated in involved paintball, which in no way helped to resolve the relationship issues back at the office. Speaking of his former company, he said that colleagues would poach each other’s deals while their manager played favourites. Someone decided a paintball exercise would help. It didn’t, and merely reinforced the divisions and favouritism already present.

Another instance of completely inappropriate team building involved the team from a contractor on an Apollo space project. They were asked by their HR department to participate in a role-playing exercise where they had to return safely from the North Pole. Their day-to-day job involved helping astronauts return safely from space. What additional insights into teamwork did HR think this role play could teach them?…

A day in the life of an event manager

From protecting the event equipment from monkeys to facilitating a team building programme for 140 managers, event management can require a lot of different skills.

Trying to explain to the curious staff at the Virgin check-in desk quite why we needed two aluminium pyramids, 65 hoola-hoops and 140 white baseball caps was the easy part…… Managing to make 200 lengths of rope, 35 pencil cases,  staff uniforms,  assorted event equipment and a bundle of paperwork meet the strict baggage restrictions was not so easy.

The look on the honeymooners’  and holiday makers’  faces as we struggled across the terminal with our  peculiar luggage was priceless at 5am in the morning. Little did we know what lay ahead; we faced a 9 hour flight sitting  with the Barmy Army England cricket supporters also on their way to the Caribbean . Let’s just say we got no sleep whatsoever!…

Performing under pressure

So far this year I’ve spent more hours than I care to remember trying to calm the nerves of fraught conference organisers.  Often days before the event has even started.

Today I spent the afternoon on the set of a live TV show.  With just two hours to air the production team managed to deal with numerous unforeseen crises calmly and confidently.

Much has been written about stress and its impact on individuals but this afternoon’s experience got me thinking about team stress.

It’s surprising how often we allow anxiety to build from within our teams, limiting productivity, stifling creativity and eradicating the fun from work….

Fresh Tracks live on Channel 4

Dan Collins has been invited onto live television to talk to the masses about team building.

As you all know, at Fresh Tracks we are passionate about how teams work and improving motivation, whether in business or socially. Therefore when we had a request from Paul O’Grady to appear live on his Channel 4 show today (Wednesday 4th March 2009) to talk about the importance of having fun at work and how to get the best out of a team, we jumped at the chance.

So if you would like to see Dan Collins run Paul and some of his production team through a team building exercise please tune into Channel 4 at 5pm today and then post a comment below and let us know what you thought.

Management lessons from Masterchef

As the hit BBC series builds towards the final, I find myself in a cluster of  Derbyshire holiday cottages with a team of bright young managers about to discover more about their management style through the medium of cooking.

This group have given up two days of their hectic schedules to invest time in getting to know each other better and to take time out as a team.  By combining proven tools such as the psychometric Strengths Deployment Inventory along with team exercises the group will begin to bond as friends rather than colleagues.

Eating together is probably the original team building activity and when those around the table have all contributed to the feast, each mouthful is all the more satisfying.  All too often we separate our behaviour at work from our behaviour with friends more than is necessary.  Given we spend up to 60% of our waking lives with our work colleagues shouldn’t we make time to build friendships.  After all these are the people that influence our health, wealth and happiness more than any other.

Conference team building in Europe

As I write today I’m being pitched and rolled aboard a Stena Line ferry travelling from the Hook of Holland to Harwich.

Below me a truck full of team building equipment is hopefully well secured to the deck.  Despite the high seas I’m excited to be part of a new chapter in the life of Fresh Tracks as we increase our overseas team building offering.  On many occasions in the past we’ve jumped on planes to deliver keynote talks and team building sessions at conferences and on occasions we’ve freighted equipment ahead of us….

Stritcly team building