5 Key things to look for in Team Building

5 Key things to look for in Team Building

How excited do you get when you find out that work is taking all the employees bowling, paintballing or even just for some food and drink for the afternoon, I don't know about you but I do!

It is the core belief of business and corporate coaching company Shirlaws "that to sustain business growth you need to maintain a balance between commercial issues (such as revenues, efficiencies and profits) and cultural issues (such as communication skills, teambuilding and leadership). Empower your staff and they'll share in your commercial vision. Reward them and your bottom line improves. Build effective teams and revenues increase.

Whatever stage your business is at, strategic and people issues always need addressing in the right balance."

So is bowling, paintballing or just a few drinks going to provide your company with an answer to balancing the commercial and cultural issues that are present in all companies?

To make your next team building activity live up to its true potential ensure you have incorporated the 5 key things to look for in team building:

1. A specific team to plan the event
2. Develop clear expectations and outcomes of the event
3. Integrate with real-time work goals
4. Establish a systematic workplace integration and follow-up process
5. Incorporate annually into an overall company structure

It is important to acquire a specific team to plan the event as at worst team building sessions help employees become cynical about their organisation. This occurs when the team building event is held outside of the context (real-time work goals) of the company's normal way of doing business. Other negative effects can exist where a team building event has no follow up, people become jaded about such events as a waste of time and energy.

Without the attention to integration, corporate team building or planning events are, at best, a short term boost to employee enthusiasm and positive morale. If they are planned and executed well, people feel good about themselves and about each other. Employees get to know each other better and have a common experience to talk about back at work.

The likely long-term effectiveness of a team building activity is enhanced when you incorporate annual team building activities into an overall company structure. Team building events can enhance and help the employees systems grow stronger and for this potential opportunity it is important to identify and develop clear expectations and outcomes. Again create the team building events around a business purpose to which all attendees can contribute, and you have the opportunity for an energizing, exciting growth opportunity.

Team building activities have the potential to bring the people you employ a strong sense of direction, workable plans and solutions, a powerful feeling of belonging with and on the team and clear, strategic customer-focused values.

Poorly planned and executed, created outside of the context of the total organization, the team building sessions bring disillusionment, low morale and negative motivation. They fail to deliver the results expected.

Oliver Sheer