A way to make the dream team come true

Team building is about building a team, not about its unconscious destruction. It is not enough to take a group of employees outdoors, give them tasks that make them work together, and provide some attractions and a dream team ready. This is a bad way of thinking, which is more loss-making than beneficial. So where to start in order to make the most of the team building potential?

Despite the fact that team building workshops are a well-known tool for working on a group in the HRM industry, unfortunately, they are still often used improperly, which is why they do not bring the expected results. What is worse, sometimes they not only do not bring them, but also generate completely different, undesirable reactions. From the badly selected team-building, the employees return frustrated, tired and… demotivated.
Team building is about building a team, not about its unconscious destruction. It is not enough to take a group of employees outdoors, give them tasks that make them work together, and provide some attractions and a dream team ready. This is a bad way of thinking, which is more loss-making than beneficial. So where to start in order to make the most of the team building potential?

Wisely achieving an objective instead of foolish compelling people
The starting point for undertaking activities aimed at building the team is a properly conducted needs analysis. In order to choose the right tools, we have to identify what problems occur in the team. We apply different solutions in the newly created group of co-workers, and different solutions in relation to employees who have problems with cooperation. Moreover, it is best to start the needs analysis by listening to the comments of the staff and comparing them with the defined by the dysfunctions trainers. There is a multitude of scenario-based team-building games, tailored to specific situations. A properly selected tool ensures that employees do not need to be forced either to team building workshops or to cooperate with each other – it starts automatically during an interesting, professionally prepared script game. Sometimes team building is organized in order to show what difficulties in teamwork are identified – an example is the concept of Escape Room. During workshops of this type, participants can see why, despite their efforts, they do not achieve their goals and, as a result, change their behaviors. However, it is always important for the participants to have freedom – the participants should be attracted to the workshop by an interesting topic, which will allow them to cooperate or draw conclusions during the task. The analysis and specification of the target make the building team workshops its realization and not a form of coercion applied to the employees.

Synergy and efficiency
The correlation is obvious. One of the assumptions of the building team is to achieve the synergy effect, which is achieved by constructing tasks in such a way that it is impossible to perform them alone. Workshop participants begin to act together, often on their own, and then, also on their own, it often turns out that by working together they can really achieve much more. Synergic action of a few people proves that 2+2 can equal 5, while acting alone, despite the greatest efforts, we will not exceed 4. This leads to a simple conclusion – by working together, we are more effective. It is important that synergies are accompanied by positive emotions. Offering employees activities other than those they perform on a daily basis in a neutral environment is attractive and engaging in itself. Good planning of the building team is not only beneficial for strengthening bonds, but also for simple relaxation. It should be remembered, however, that when organizing an effective team building, it is necessary to use tools that facilitate establishing relations between employees and improve communication processes in the company. It is important to make the workshop participants aware of the aspects of team building. Every effective team building should include a certain methodology and training tools. When analyzing the work and cooperation of the participants, the trainer should make everyone aware of what they can improve in order to work even more effectively.

What comes first? Integration or team building?
Team building is often confused with integration. Meanwhile, integration is one thing, and team building workshops are another. Yes, there are integration elements in the building team, but they should be accompanied by properly selected training tools. When we talk about a team building we mean, first of all, building a team, improving communication, learning constructive conflict resolution and assertiveness, ways to give effective feedback. These are values that we will not achieve through the integration of workers alone. Besides, integration is connected with some emotions, which naturally accompany all participants, while during the organized team building we evoke some emotions in a controlled way. Often, TB workshops put participants in unusual situations and set them in completely new roles, going beyond their comfort zone. Team building, although it usually relies on an interesting game, is not only fun. It is, above all, a tool for working on human capital. That is why it is best to organize team building workshops coherently with the evening program. Then we will manage to achieve a balance and provide our employees with training, integration and entertainment elements.

The best proof of the effectiveness and purposefulness of team building training is the fact that it always leads to some reflection. Analyses supported by professional coaching comments lead to the development of effective methods of cooperation. In order to build a dream team, it is not enough to recruit a strong group of corporate talents. We also need to create the ability to communicate efficiently and cooperate effectively between them, starting with making them aware of how much more effective synergistic action is. At the same time, each talent is a strong personality, aware of their value, to whom the workshops of the building team are supposed to show that by acting in synergy they can achieve even more. In addition, team building is a great opportunity to strengthen bonds, relax and reduce the effects of stress, and direct contact with employees inspires more confidence. With the use of team building workshops you can create a dream team, you only need to have a substantive approach to this.

 

See our team building projects https://fswo.pl/en/portfolio-category/team-building-en/