We all know how hard is to deal with the responsibilities when the team isn’t enough consolidated. Activities, like solving problems, collaboration and achieving the company’s goals, require the team to work together and each team member should fully prepared to collaborate. But when people aren’t on the same wavelength, there’s no way to deliver the highest quality of results and the tasks are often finished after the given time limit. Such behavior is an effect of insufficient teamwork skills (and communication skills as well) and employees should be aware of the consequences. So, how to raise the employees’ morale, turn up their motivation and increase team performance? Let us tell you something more about team building!
What is the main purpose of team building?
Each company has its own mission statements – the rules of conduct and objectives to reach for the departments. But as I mentioned in the introduction, it’s not easy to meet the challenges without creating a team-friendly workplace, where each employee can show his or her potential.
But what exactly the team building is?
According to Wikipedia:
Team building is a collective term for various types of activities used to enhance social relations and define roles within teams, often involving collaborative tasks.
As it states, team building assumes the existence of relationships between the employees. Most of the organizations are based on a certain hierarchy, consist of the teams headed by the team leader responsible for the allocation of the responsibilities. The way they’re managing the group of different personalities is the key to success – the more effort they put them to work together effectively, the better the results team achieves. Sounds nice and easy, doesn’t it?
Unfortunately, it’s often different from the reality, especially when the business owners are profits-oriented and doesn’t care about the way the goals are achieving. The lack of proper project management results in poor communication and exceeding deadlines. Employees are frustrated and the entire group pays for the failure because of the collective responsibility. Nothing makes each team member more angry than paying for others’ mistakes.
How to avoid such unpleasant situations? Team building is the answer!
The process involves every single activity that leads the group of people to become a one, progress-oriented structure. Each of its steps should be focused on employees’ development, unleashing their creativity, emphasizing their strong points. The main purpose of the team building is to make the team members trust each other and their manager as well because nothing raises the team spirit more than the knowledge that you can rely on your coworkers.
What are the examples of team building activities?
There are various types of team building activities. But there is one core principle you should follow – choosing them based on the interests and expectations of your team. Each group of people consists of different personalities, so as a team leader, you should see the bigger picture. Of course, it’s not possible to satisfy everyone, but at least you’ll let your team members know that you take their opinions into consideration.
One of the most well-known examples of team building is workation. It’s nothing more than a business trip, mostly during the summer vacation, but it also involves the time that the team members spent together on non-work-related activities. It includes various ways of spending leisure time and depends on how long the trip is, where you’re going and how many means do you have. Collaborating on tasks and dealing with daily responsibilities the team can go sightseeing, hiking, relax on the beach or enjoy the meals together. Hint: remember to take some board games, they’re perfect on rainy days or for the evening meetings! Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?
But if your company doesn’t have enough funds to let the team travel together, another fine option is the after-hours meetings. Take your employees to the nice restaurant, bar or somewhere else where they can feel less formal. It helps create bonds with each other because non-office interactions make the people more chilled out, more willing to discuss their interests and needs instead of talking over the daily responsibilities. Who knows, maybe the long-lasting friendships can be built through these meetings?
Team building means spending time as a team together and in fact, it doesn’t require too much money to invest. One of the cheapest options is just ensuring your employees a lunchtime when the teammates can just enjoy the meal together. Such breaks can also help build the bonds between the departments – sales team, marketing team, dev team, and leaders can just spend some time in person because in the online collaboration era we’re lack of the face-to-face contact.
As you can see, team building requires social interaction. Leading a team of individuals can be tough and sometimes causes a real headache, but conducting team building sessions can help maintain the process quickly and easily.
How to introduce my employees to team building activities?
Nobody likes to be surprised by the activities that they’re don’t prepared for. Such situations include forcing people to make useless conversations, listening to “motivational” speech or inviting them for an event without a proper purpose. What makes a great team is transparency, that’s why the first thing you should do through the process of team building is to make your employees aware of things that happen around them. Explain the necessity of your decisions, let them share their ideas and opinions listening to them carefully.
Next, let the employees actively participate – passive listening is getting us nowhere. For example, you can allow the group to help in choosing the trip destination or restaurant to visit (or at least the cuisine they enjoy the most). On the other hand, the group consists of people of different interests and tastes, so gamification is the solution – the better employees perform, the higher the chances are to make important decisions. Tools like time tracker or task tracker will help you track their progress and show clearly how they’re performing.
Hint: give TimeCamp and HeySpace integration a try!
And in the end, let me ask you one important question…
How do you build your team?
After reading all these business tips written above, deep down inside and ask yourself: what did I do to make my team stronger, better performing, more productive? There is always a good time for the changes, especially those carried out wisely, focused on the employees instead of generating the revenues. Strong teams believe in the leader’s choices and methods and on the other hand, strong leaders rely on the experience and knowledge of his/her subordinates. Team building activities help strengthen this bond, improve productivity and communication, make people more aware of their work expectations. Introduce it to your team and the rest will follow – trust me, you’ll be impressed with the results!