Every Day is Team Building Day If You Do It Right
Posted on Monday, June 15, 2009 by Frank Roche
We silk screened t-shirts at our shop on Friday. Shawn sent out a note earlier in the week saying he’d made a screen, so bring in a shirt…and we did. See that picture? That’s a few people from iFractal in their newly-printed shirts. You know what’s the coolest part? We didn’t call it a Team Building Day. Every day is Team Building Day. And that’s how it should be.
Here’s my take on once-a-year team building event: It doesn’t work. And kind of like how you can’t tickle yourself, you can’t force team building either, no matter how many wacky water balloons you fill or ropes courses you put up. Unless team building is an all-the-time thing it will never be what you want it to be.
Angela Rao-Brown SPHR
Jun 15th, 2009
Frank, you couldn’t be more on target with this one. I cringe at the memory of being forced (or having to force others) to join team builing exercises. But when it happened organically, it was fun. We’d play Win Lose or Draw in the lunchroom every Friday at the afternoon break and it was amazing how everyone got into it.
Frank Roche
Jun 15th, 2009
@Angela I hate that uncomfortable feeling that goes with team building exercises. The spontaneous ones — fabulous. It’s the difference between constructed and authentic. So true.
Wally Bock
Jun 15th, 2009
Team building events are products of the Consultants and Gurus Full Employment Act. As such they provide a needed public service by allowing consultants and gurus to remain gainfully employed, buy McMansions and put their children through Ivy League schools. Without team building events, many of these poor creatures would be on the public dole and a drain on society.
OK, so maybe that wasn’t so serious. But the teams we love to talk about, sports teams and military teams, don’t try to improve teamwork by sending people off to cook a meal together, fall backwards into each others arms, or share the intimate details of the sexual fantasies in small groups. No. The way that teams get better is by doing more of what they do together and critiquing their behavior and performance. This generally does not require a special day, an outside consultant or an offsite.
Frank Roche
Jun 15th, 2009
@Wally That cracked me up…so true, the Gurus Full Employment Act. LOL.
You’re so right, the teams that do better together work together all the time and build on that. It’s what we do in our place…and it’s how it works in all high involvement organizations. I just cringe thinking about the uncomfortable first part of an offsite when people don’t know each other but have to do some activity. Yikes.
Wally Bock
Jun 15th, 2009
Ah, Frank you just brought back another memory. I once attended a storytelling workshop where one of the session leaders directed us to share something about our dreams so we could bond with one another. I refused.
She told me not to be defensive. My first thought that that she was confusing pissed off with defensive, but I let that pass. I told me dreams were private and I chose not to share.
Her response was that if we didn’t share private things we could never communicate. So I offered to share a dream of mine if she would tell us the fee she was getting for conducting the session. She didn’t bother me any more.
A final comment. I’ve noticed that most of the time the “ice breaker” exercises don’t yield anything that moves the purpose of the session forward. I’ve always found that if one of the first things that happens is you put folks in a small group with something interesting to discuss, they get to know each other and move the process forward. Kinda like team building.
Furley
Jun 15th, 2009
I forgot to look at the camera. Next time.
Bill Strahan
Jun 16th, 2009
Are clients eligible to bring in a shirt?
Frank Roche
Jun 16th, 2009
@Bill, even better, clients get a shirt for leaving a comment that makes me smile.
fran melmed
Jun 16th, 2009
frank, seems to me you need to start silk screening again. y’all need to create some “ifractal groupie” t-shirts.
Frank Roche
Jun 16th, 2009
@Fran…that’s a great idea…maybe we should throw a party and have people over for some silk screening. It is a blast. Thanks for that idea!
Tom Hendrikson
Jun 17th, 2009
“Constucted” team development exercises can be effective if they are based on an understanding of how the team functions now. Exercises constructed as metaphors for the current state can be very eye-opening for those who are “in it.”
team building san antonio
Jul 26th, 2009
If team members interact with each other on a personal level as well as a business level, the project will be more appealing to work on and the results will show this. They must truly want the venture to be a success and feel that they are a part of that success. They must work well with the other team members, which is essential when establishing a team building program. Our numerous onsite team building games and activities help you to establish that level of communication.
Keynote Speaker
Jul 30th, 2009
“If team members interact with each other on a personal level as well as a business level, the project will be more appealing to work on and the results will show this. They must truly want the venture to be a success and feel that they are a part of that success.”
This is eventually true. In a team, members also need to be friends for better interaction. The working environment will be a peaceful working environment if friendship is established among team members and the leader.