Team building can enhance business performance or it can be such an uncomfortable experience that people hate it. Here’s how to get maximum results from team building and cut through the confusion.

Lost and Confused

I admit I’m lost in all the terms and labels about group activities. Team building, team recreation, community building, teamship, groupship … they are all confusing and often meaningless labels. What’s the difference? How do you do these activities, and are they really just a waste of time and money?

Odds are a healthy percentage of any organization hates team building. I admit that I’m seldom thrilled to see it on the agenda. I have flashbacks of tattered groups of people held hostage and forced to perform trivial, ridiculous, embarrassing acts against their wills. It’s like an endless episode of Survivor and I can’t get voted off the island.

I draw the line at group activities that involve:

•  Animals & reptiles

•  Burning coals

•  Group confessions

•  Ropes, climbing, falling or bungee jumping

•  And anything where people put their fingers under my knees and armpits

Group Development Therapy

I know I may need some group development therapy, so I turned to an established expert, Anne Thornley-Brown. Anne is the president and founder of Toronto-based Executive Oasis International. She’s an executive team-building specialist with clients in 16 countries. She says that of the different terms, the ones that seem to be the most tangled are team building and team recreation.

The Difference Between Team Building and Team Recreation

There are several things you can do as groups and teams. Here’s how Anne explains the difference.

“Team Building seeks to enhance team cohesiveness and performance to improve business results. A facilitator guides teams through very specific phases of group development. It’s not general it’s aimed at helping teams generate specific business results.”

“Team Recreation is intended to get your people out of the office for a time of relaxation, recreation and leisure. The goal is to have fun and let people get to know each other better in a low-stress situation. There are no business objectives or outcomes.”

“Right now the majority of what I see is really corporate play dates. Which is kind of shocking since the economy has still not full recovered and you’d think people would want more value.”

So it seems that the biggest misconception is people don’t know the difference between the two. They are attracted by the labels and not focused on the results. Everything is blurred and gets lumped under the banner of team building. Even though you might not know the difference the participants will. They’re the ones attempting to find the performance benefits of a scavenger hunt.

How do you stop your team from hating team building? First you have to get a perspective on what you’re doing and why.

The Value of Team Recreation

Having fun is good. It’s a way to celebrate and enjoy the simple pleasures of being with people who are members of a division or organization. It’s “US” time.

“There’s a place for recreation where a team can have fun as a group,” Anne explained. “If the team is in a place where they never laugh or play it’s going to be a pretty dreary workplace. Team recreation doesn’t need competition and winners and losers. It’s the experience of being together that’s valuable.”

There seems to be a lot of value in just letting people relax and enjoy themselves. So why not just have a series of corporate play dates that make people feel valued and appreciated?

“Corporate play dates are extremely important for the health of the organization but they aren’t a substitute for real team building. Having fun and letting off steam is not addressing and trying to identify and resolve core issues between individuals or departments that are impacting corporate performance.“

The Value of Team Building

A team is a group of people linked by common jobs, organization and objectives. The goal is to generate a specific business result. Most of the time people are placed on a team to accomplish something they couldn’t accomplish as individuals. They are labeled a team but it’s just a collection of people. They don’t know how to work together. Team building gives them a foundation, but don’t confuse teamwork and team building.

Teamwork is how effectively people work together. It’s execution and coordination. Teamwork is tactical.

Team Building involves strengthening the relationships that increase cohesiveness, efficiency and productivity. Team Building is strategic. Anne reminded me that, just because you divide people into groups or teams and participate together in an activity, doesn’t make it team building.

“I can take people to an art gallery, divide them up into teams and have them create their own painting. That isn’t team building, it’s participating in a recreational art activity. It doesn’t address any issues and how to resolve them.”

“I can take that same activity and put in a pre-briefing to tie the process of creating a painting into the specific business objective. Let people experience the activity and then guide them through debriefing to identify the tools and core learnings they can take back to the workplace and business application exercises to address specific business issues. This will help them take what they learned and apply it to the realities of their business … things that need to change and how. Then, it becomes team building and the art activity is but a means to an end.”

Get Maximum Results From Team Building

I have to admit it: Team building the way Anne Thornley-Brown describes it sounds a lot more survivable than paintball. Still there are some critical things you have to do before any activity. Begin by honestly assessing the situation, morale, attitudes and performance of the people you want to attend.

1.  Do they all have the same understanding of their jobs, goals and the desired results?

2.  What is the business issue or challenge?

3.  What caused it?

4. What change in behavior, attitude or performance will correct the situation?

Then you can identify the things that you can address in team building. Just remember that you can’t correct serious leadership, human resources and personal issues with group activities.

You Can Enjoy It

You can stop your team from hating team building by being realistic about what it can and can’t do. What I’ve learned here is that there’s some serious value in getting out of the office and the meeting rooms and doing something together. After all, those teams are people. They enjoy doing, sharing and experiencing things together. The goal is to make it comfortable and valuable. And, a personal note here, you don’t have to bungee jump to get it!

I want to thank Anne Thornley-Brown for her patience with my endless questions. You can contact her through her website Team Building by Executive Oasis International http://www.executiveoasis.com.

If you want to know more about involving teams and activating audiences just click on CONTACT US and get in touch.

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