Building a great team starts with great leadership. A great leader has many positive attributes such as correcting the course when necessary, making tough decisions, and setting performance standards. Team building and leadership requires ego management, recognition, and continuous development among other things to work well over the short and long term.
Businesses that invest in team building are often more successful and have enhanced rapport among team members. It also makes team members feel like contributors to the overall success of their team or company. Leadership’s understanding of team building and team building activities is essential to effectively fostering team synergy.
Team building activities are a great way to develop and foster the health of a team. Whether team building activities consist of a small get together for food and drinks after work or an office field trip to a mini golf course, finding the perfect fit and mix of team members is essential to team development. Team building activities are good opportunities to understand which team members work well together, which assume leadership roles, and which prefer to sit back and follow direction.
Every team is made up of different people with different skills, abilities, and personalities. Understanding each person’s strengths and weaknesses is an essential part of understanding what combination of elements works for a specific team. What works for one team may not work for the next, so it’s important to engage with team members to understand and evaluate how they work together. This will help executives and managers understand whether they’ve got the right mix and hit the mark with their teams.
Team Building Activities
- Job Shadowing: While job shadowing is better suited for smaller teams, it has the potential to help teams and departments understand the challenges and opportunities of co-workers and other team members. Working in a different department or team for a day can help staff get a better understanding of how their job and actions affects other team members, as well as get a better idea of how the company works. Team members can exchange ideas in order to help each other and increase productivity.
- Volunteering: A non-business specific event like volunteering for a local charity gives team members the opportunity to see each other in a different setting. It provides an immediate opportunity for team members to have something that’s not work-related in common. Volunteering also benefits the company and team image.
- Games: Games are maybe among the most loved activities when it comes to team building, let's be honest - and perhaps the most efficient ones as well, in terms of creating that TEAM SPIRIT. Games such as obstacle course, team assembly, rope war and skipping rope competition will not only improve team work, but will also develop the much needed trust and enhance problem solving skills.
Given our industry, and the fact that The Workplace Depot provides everything for the workplace, we've customised our team building activities to make things even more personal. For the obstacle course we used our very own traffic cones, for the team assembly activity we decided that office trolleys are exactly what we need, while the rope war and skipping rope competition were ideal for our cone rope.
While team building activities are useful they need to fit into the bigger picture of developing your team’s vision and objectives. It’s useful to choose an activity that will develop the skills necessary to excel in a challenge that a team might face on a daily basis.