When you mention “team building” to your colleagues, you’re likely met with groans and sighs. That’s because most team building feels like the forced fun your parents made you participate in when you were a teenager, like letting your little sister tag along somewhere or being stuck in a car on a family vacation.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Modern team building can warm up an office environment fast. It can inspire even the most disengaged worker to give their best effort. If you hate team building, keep reading to learn a better way to inspire, lead, and keep your team warm this winter.
Entire comedy sitcoms have been created around the idea of forced fun and team building. First there was Clark Griswold and his family in the Wagon Queen Family Truckster. The Office made us laugh at countless ridiculous team-building exercises. What about Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey’s antics at the Six Sigmas retreat on 30 Rock?
The best comedy makes fun of the ridiculousness found in real-life situations. Unfortunately, these comedic antics are too close to some of our corporate efforts to make employees successfully bond with each other.
Here are some really bad ideas for team-building activities:
In 2017, Entrepreneur broke some bad news to corporate leaders with an article called, “There’s No Easy Way to Say This, But…Your Employees Hate Your Team-Building Ideas.”
The word was out. A Psychological Science journal article followed, showing how forced team-building exercises can backfire. They found worst-case scenarios could lead to:
While bad team-building events and the blowback they cause are hilarious when played out in The Office, they’re not funny in real life. Demotivated teams are unproductive teams.
The problem with forced-fun team building is that it fails to address the root issues holding back your teams.
Liz Ryan says the entire multimillion-dollar team-building industry was built around the fallacy that “if only your team members spent more time doing silly things and solving group problems together, climbing trees and rolling around on the floor, they would work more effectively together the rest of the time.”
If what we’ve been taught about team building is wrong, what can corporate leaders do to help teams grow, communicate, and become more cohesive?
Authentic team building does not start in the woods on a ropes course or even in a corporate seminar.
Liz Ryan suggests teams that lack cohesion also lack authenticity—and this problem usually stems from management or a toxic work environment and not necessarily the teams themselves. She suggests team building simply will not bond workers together if the department has:
“If you have to take your team off-site to play games because you can’t stand to talk about what’s really happening in your office, what does that say about you as a leader?” she asks. Teams need to solve their internal problems first and then work on becoming closer to their coworkers. Or perhaps the best team building can do both simultaneously.
Carlos Valdes-Dapena implores leaders in Harvard Business Review to “Stop Wasting Money on Team Building.” He and his research colleagues studied teams and determined:
Real leaders recognize that a team is only as good as the individual members within it. Focusing on the individual players within the team, including by building soft skills like communication and patience, can strengthen the team. What if team building could take a form other than the traditional forced-fun approaches we’ve been groaning about and instead create authentic ways for teams to address real problems and come up with solutions?
Workology recently published their take on modern team-building exercises and how they can grow the organization. They suggested the right kind of team building motivates and inspires. For example, your team can:
The difference between these types of activities and forced-fun team building is that the employer makes an honest effort to build cohesion by motivating employees with what is important to them. Creating opportunities to improve communication and motivation means employees will naturally create friendships at work, which improve morale and productivity.
Do you know who has mastered the art of team building? Firefighters. Cornell University studied more than 400 fire stations and found that the one thing that brings teams together is the tradition of the firehouse communal meal. Firemen and firewomen shop, take turns cooking, and then eat together and coordinate cleanup.
CIO magazine agrees that prepping and eating meals can bring people together. They interviewed a marketing executive in LA who said the most effective team-building exercise she ever participated in was a challenge to bring in the best peanut butter and jelly sandwich you can make. Good-natured banter about the importance of PB&J, a shared tasting, and reminiscing about the comfort food all made for a fun, creative way to bond people together without ever using the term “team building.”
This kind of organic, authentic team building is exactly what the majority of your employees will appreciate. Another suggestion comes from a Forbes article by contributor Dana Brown lee. She helps corporate teams improve communication by conducting the 4 Walls Communication Activity. The simple 15-minute exercise is designed to help people figure out their preferred communication mode and can be used at the beginning of a meeting. The steps include:
It’s a simple exercise but you might be shocked at how many workers recognize that they’re a source of frustration by communicating in the “wrong” ways with their coworkers. Everyone is wired differently, so filling in these communication gaps can improve the cohesiveness of and lower frustration levels in your department. It’s a team-building exercise that will help improve the daily working relationships of your employees.
“Strong relationships and trust do matter to collaboration, but they are not the starting point. They are the outcomes of dedicated people striving together. Connecting collaboration to the motives of success-minded team members is what unlocks productive teamwork.”
–Carlos Valdes-Dapena, “Stop Wasting Money on Team Building,” Harvard Business Review
Here’s what have we learned about team building so far:
CIO magazine points out that effective teams start with effective leaders. They found the characteristics of effective teams include an understanding of their organization’s mission and their place in achieving it. The best team building reinforces not only why we’re here but also how we’re in this together.
When you’re trying to warm up your office environment with team building, the key takeaway for managers may be a simple idea that’s hard to execute:
You cannot make your employees want to be productive, but you can create an environment in which they want to excel.
That’s the nugget behind successful team building. Don’t use recreational activities as a replacement for real team building. Don’t put your team at risk with dangerous activities. Instead, work with your team to establish goals and tasks and encourage them along the way. Some fun ideas that your teams may get behind include:
Bejan Douraghy, CEO of Artisan Talent, shares these three simple, but effective tips for inspiring staff and building teams:
If your team is struggling, maybe it’s time for some fresh talent. Artisan Talent helps build effective, award-winning teams. Contact us.