Making Time For Team Building

What about creating your own unique "Olympics" event to inspire camaraderie and collaboration?

“We don’t have time for this!” A common sentiment when it’s suggested that busy executives head off-site for team-building activities. But when teams make the time, they often find that these exercises ultimately lead to a deeper understanding and appreciation of one another.

One group decided to use the Olympics as their theme to participate in an assortment of physical, mental, indoor, and outdoor events. This was purposely differentiated from those executive golf team-building outings, where the same people who always hang out together still hang out together on the course. Events like that separate out the haves (as in have the golf skill) from the have-not's (better sign up for that massage or walking tour now). In this case, four cross-functional teams together found the various competitive events to be fun and challenging

Some people were hesitant about this session, because they didn’t think they could break away from the office for a day to play games. But by the end of the Olympics, they were having such a good time it was actually hard to leave. They were all reminded of the power of teamwork. People were engaged, and the different environment caused them to see each other in a new light , which in turn increased morale and communications.

So, what do you, as leader, do when everyone says they are too busy to join in the firefly hunt, leaving group problems to remain unresolved? It is hard to take time—correct that, make time—to be away from your daily tasks for the purpose of enhancing your collaboration, creativity, and cohesiveness as a team. But I promise you that the payoff will be the long-term vitality and effectiveness of this group of people.

As the preceding Olympics team discovered, the results last way beyond game day. If you are only getting together as a team during regular staff meetings, then you are really missing out on the many other powerful ways to bond together as a team.

It’s easy to find concrete, doable steps, created to carve out time on the team’s calendar for higher value-added activities. On the easy end of the continuum (in terms of not a whole lot of up-front planning being necessary) are such ideas as a team declaration of a moratorium on meetings for just one day out of the workweek. This has the unintended (but happily foreseeable) consequence of causing people to be much more invested in making the meetings they do attend on the other days much more impactful.

Why stop there? Why not declare a ban on all habitually pointless meetings? How do you know a meeting will not be worth your investment of time? No one, including the meeting leader, knows what the critical meeting deliverables are. There is never a well-thought-out agenda for the meeting, much less one sent out in advance so participants can prepare to participate. We never have everyone there, since this meeting is not seen as a can’t miss event, so the same discussions happen over and over again, and decisions get delayed until just maybe the problem resolves itself. Sound like meeting hell?

In addition to implementing the ban on meetings for at least one day of the week, you could also try making the meetings you do attend more effective using the above-mentioned tips. And you could try replacing an unnecessary meeting with a brief phone call or one-on-one conversation, an e-mail exchange, or posting a document on a shared drive for people to add their comments and questions.

Hopefully, these suggestions will prompt you to find the elusive excess time on people’s calendars that is needed to engage in quality team-building events . How about engaging your team in picking one of the events above to try out? Better yet, release their creative talents and allow them to design one that will truly engage them, and result in newfound collaboration and ideas to apply to your toughest business challenges and your most exciting business opportunities!