Greg Huber

Greeting people at the door and receiving a warm, friendly reception is my typical experience upon starting a program. One particular time stands out as the majority shuffled in without acknowledging me at the door. Some stopped with reluctance to take their playing card before finding a seat. Within five minutes of beginning, one person asked where the bathroom was located and left the room. I waited to start, but he never came back. Shortly later, a handful of people hovered together, creating quite the disruption, to deal with a so-called crisis.

I realize that it’s nearly impossible to satisfy everyone in a group of 50 people, but rarely do I get such a negative vibe as I did this time. Despite the initial lack of interest, and countless distractions during the program, the feedback from my client’s group was good. Much to my surprise, 85% was extremely positive, 10% was in the middle and 5% was extremely negative. I was pleased with the feedback and looked carefully at the comments, especially to the few that were very negative…

“I do not believe 2+ hours essentially playing games is going to make us work together better.”

“I left at the beginning of this. This was an absolute waste of time. Playing games with the toys doesn’t develop personal relationships in the way that was trying to be accomplished. If you want certain people to have conversations let them describe their job, so I can ask questions and communicate effectively.”

With nearly 30 years of experience conducting these programs, I’ll be the first to admit that not every program is perfect, effective or a home run. I realize I’m not going to make believers out of everyone. Naturally, I want to understand what I could do differently to engage the folks that had a less than stellar experience. After every program, I strive to determine where I was lost in translation between the people who I was successful at engaging and those who I was not. Fortunately, there is always plenty of positive feedback…

“I don’t normally like these kinds of events but Mr. Huber keeps it interesting and gives an understanding as to why we did it.”

To get to the bottom of the brutally honest, negative feedback, I wanted to find out from my client how they positioned the program to their group. What did they tell these folks prior to the program? One of the first questions I asked was “what did you tell them about the team building session?”. Much to my dismay, but not my surprise, the group coordinator said, “I didn’t say anything, I like to keep it a surprise”.

The element of surprise is something I encounter in nearly 25% of all the programs I conduct. And that, my friends, is the problem. NEVER keep your team building or team development a surprise from your people.

Why?

• The group needs to know that you value the team building process.
• The group needs to know “what’s in it for me?”
• The group needs to know that you care about their development.
• The group needs to know you trust the team building vendor enough to deliver the program that you have chosen.
• The group needs to know the time spent is a development opportunity for them (collectively as a group and individually).
• The group needs to understand how this session fits into the other parts of the program content.
• The group needs to understand in clear terms what experiential learning is all about and how it is different than the “classroom” learning environment, or death by PowerPoint.

This is not to absolve the team building provider of any of his/her responsibility as the vendor and provider of services. A reputable team building provider still needs to create an engaging environment and one in which people can make the choice to learn. Also, the provider needs to match the activities to the audience and the outcomes.

In the example above, I believe if the client had framed the experiential learning process, the value of the experience and how it relates to the specific outcomes of the overall session, people would have come in more open-minded. Critical for these programs, an open mind allows folks to see beyond the activities and games to realize the program is designed to…

1. Be fun and engaging but with the purpose of creating conversations to accelerate the process of building relationships.
2. Create a level of challenge that can lead to success or failure but most important what can be learned from either outcome.
3. Help people and teams learn to think differently about how they work together and solve problems.

Surprise doesn’t add excitement to the team building experience

The majority of people today have participated in some pretty lame team building experiences that truly were a waste of their time and did not add any value to the overall experience and/or felt disconnected from the overall event in some way.

Moral of the story — If you are doing a team building event to accomplish certain outcomes and spending time and money on the event, do your part in framing the experience properly so the participants understand there is purpose and value in the time you are asking them to spend. Then of course, make sure you select the right vendor that can keep YOUR promise.

To learn more about our teambuilding programs, contact Signature Teambuilding today.

Every company has different measures for gauging camaraderie, performance and any other characteristics that defines their team. When we think about activities, events and outings to build these values, each of us probably has something different in mind. Rightfully so, team building isn’t a one-size-fits-all deal.

What companies don’t know is that they may be considering the wrong programs and activities to achieve their unique goals. Here, we’ll discuss three primary ways many companies end up wasting money on team building.

1) Decision makers fail to distinguish between team building processes and outcomes, and team bonding events.

The latter produce very little real ROI except to provide some pleasant distraction for your staff for a day, and a temporary heightened sense of well-being. Their decision to buy into such a program is largely focused on the games and activities and at what price they’re provided. Actual team building programs are geared towards producing a certain outcome, like enhanced intra-team communication. These programs use experiential activities as a platform from which group learning and “ah-ha’s“ of the day can be transferred back to the workplace via experienced facilitators who are trained in experiential learning methodology.

2) Buyers of team building programs talk about custom programs, but don’t ask substantive questions to really understand the goals and objectives for the program.

Unless the vendor asks detailed questions before a program to understand specific team behaviors and what their team is like in terms of contextual strengths and weaknesses, how can any team building program be meaningfully designed for outcomes? It continues to amaze me how few potential clients actually care about how their dollars are being translated into future positive team behaviors that help the bottom-line.

3) Decision-makers only view the team event as a one-off experience, never integrating it into a greater plan of leadership or team development.

In short, these folks are committed to a great day out, and less inclined to achieve sustainable results. Ever heard of a great team that was created in a day? Look at your spending on “team building” compared to sales, communication and such skills-based training costs. Without an ongoing plan for team development moving forward, very few of these “activity focused” team building measures create a sustainable platform for development. It’s likely poor team behaviors will continue to hobble them in the short and medium term.

Team bonding or team building?

You’ll hear me talk time and time again about what I feel are the obvious differences between team building and team bonding. It doesn’t mean that one of these processes is pointless or wrong. It’s all about the goal in which you’re trying to achieve for your team. Improving performance, deepening connections, developing trust and building skills in problem solving and change management is what Signature Teambuilding strives to fulfill. If you want to give your team a shared experience where they can loosen up and let off some steam, try a one-off team bonding event. All I ask is that you not mistake one for the other — they aren’t interchangeable. Check out this chart to understand the difference…

Team building is a process, not an event.

Unless your staff needs a team bonding experience like going bowling, or singing karaoke, what they might really benefit from is attending a fun, team building program designed to help them back in the workplace. Contact Signature Teambuilding today to learn more about what types of team building programs exist to achieve the unique goals of your team.

The idea that teamwork and collaborative efforts impact a company’s successes is nothing new. In fact, it’s becoming more commonplace for organizations — from small to medium sized businesses all the way up to large corporations — to build a strong team culture and use those values in their day to day. Being a team player is a non-negotiable in most of today’s workplaces.

At Signature Teambuilding, we believe there is a huge difference in team bonding and team building — it’s getting out of your comfort zone and feeling challenged to truly show others what you’re capable of achieving. So often you’ll hear about team building in relation to sports and athletic activities — and of course, in our connected suite of customized programs. Our goal for you is to break down the barriers that limit team performance. While anything is possible in our programs, you should realize that a cohesive, unified team starts in the workplace. Camaraderie is built through the achievement of goals and collaborative successes.

Experience an “aha moment” — learn how our programs are different!

---

So now we should ask…as a team, what and where are we without goals? For a business to be successful and retain happy, motivated workers, they must set goals. You’re probably thinking “every business has goals”. Sure, they do, but are they realistic, attainable goals that encourage the team unit to flourish? Too frequently we hear companies setting lofty, unattainable goals and employees are left feeling defeated time and time again. If you want your people to feel a sense of purpose, acknowledgement and pride — you must provide them with the right type of goals in which to strive.

For the betterment of your team atmosphere, here are some helpful goal setting tips…

1Differentiate statements from goals. Simply saying your company will increase revenue this year is a statement that likely won’t amount to much.

2It’s nothing until it’s on paper. Goals that aren’t documented mean very little, and without feasible strategies of fulfillment they mean even less.

3Don’t abandon ship at the first sign of distress. Routinely monitor and assess goals, tweaking them along the way, but don’t desert them altogether until unless it’s absolutely necessary.

4Set individual, group and company-wide goals. To really instill the idea of goal setting as a collaborative effort, publicize them so each person feels responsibility on an individual, and team level.

5Make sure your goals align with your company culture. No one likes someone who says one thing, but acts on the opposite. Your goals should reflect your mission statement, who you are.

6Set goals to eliminate the pitfalls. Don’t just focus on goals with positive outlooks; sometimes it’s necessary to make goals that we hope will lessen weakness.

7Think of goals as a road map. You can shoot for the final destination, but it’s the smaller goals along the way that get you there.

---

Proper goal setting in your business brings you that much closer to the big picture, but it also has many small impacts. When your people are confidently armed with an understanding of your culture, values and goals it brings new focus to the work, increases motivation, offers measurability and most importantly develops and encourages camaraderie in the work environment. Don’t give people the chance to vegetate and struggle for meaningful triumphs. Involving everyone in goal setting enables them to understand the why and how, in order to reach the where.