Management Blog

Booking a Team Building Programme - What You Need to Think About

Organising and running a team building or management development training event is  a difficult task at the best of times. Fior instance outcomes must reflect the time and  money invested,safety is also paramount.

Objective Setting & Outcomes

It is fundamental to any successful team event that your objectives are clear. For instance with teams is it a team building or a team development programme that is required. It is important for people to recognise that there is a difference between team building and team development or team working. Team building involves bringing together new teams and giving them a sense of direction, a period of getting to know their colleagues, recognising skills and abilities. Team development is the next stage which involves teamworking skills such as sharing ideas, co-operating, being open and supporting one another. It is a common mistake that many of our clients make when they first approach us when seeking to define the issue for them. They confuse the term team building with teamworking. If you can’t define the problem then it is difficult to fix it.

In order to get the most out of any outdoor team building event I suggest that the following questions are asked, whilst this is not intended to be an exhaustive list it provides food for thought.

Review, Follow-up & Measurement

1. How will the exercises achieve the desired outcomes?
2. How much time is spent reviewing the team building tasks?
3. What techniques do you use to review the tasks?
4. What is the purpose of this review process?
5. When is review carried out?
6. Do you carry out follow up sessions at any time?
7. What is the purpose of follow up?
8. What is the purpose of team building/outdoor management development training?
9. How are your staff qualified to deliver this training?
10. How do you measure outcomes?

Safety

1. Is the company insured?
2. What are your risk assessments for each activity?
3. Do your staff have first aid certificates?
4. How do you assess participants suitability for the course?
5. What are your procedures in an emergency?

Facilitation

1. What are your experiences in working with groups?
2. How do you get the individuals and group to reveal their thoughts during the exercises?
3. How do you ensure that all members of the team participate and contribute?
4. How do you help transfer learning during the team building training, back to the workplace?
5. How do you motivate people?
6. What does a high performing team look like?

Team Building Using the Outdoors - Why it Works

Team building at its best results in synergy i.e. 1+ 1 = 3 the sum is greater than the individual parts. The power of outdoor-based team building lies in the experiential nature of the learning that takes place. Well-designed and well-facilitated outdoor leadership and team building tasks have several advantages over traditional classroom based methods, a list of these advantages would include:-

• Environment-research has shown that  taking individuals into an unusual and stimulating environment can have a noticeable effect on the desire to develop new skills.
• The tasks have real outcomes-Well designed challenging programmes will include tasks that have real and measurable outcomes for both individuals and teams; this is an ideal metaphor for the workplace.
• Teams are able to make mistakes and learn from them with no consequence on the business.

When developing our team building courses Call of the Wild aim to give teams the chance to enhance several aspects of team working.

• Communication
• Trust
• Open and frank discussion
• Goal setting
• Problem solving
• Listening skills

It is through the development and implementation of these skills that teams can begin to work to their potential.

Critical to the success of our any team building programme is the amount of time allowed for feedback and facilitation, as it is only on reflection that learning can be identified and consolidated.

Team building is important to most organisations and should be seen as an essential component of any training plan.

 

Fior more information on team building programmes visit our website.

Group Dynamics

Group Dynamics is the study of the structure and processes of groups. Less formally, the dynamics of a group are taken to be those processes, influences, leadership actions, roles and energy levels that can change as people join or leave, as groups experience success or failure and, in particular, as groups change (or have changed for them) their values and purposes.

Cohesive groups share the same values. Non-conforming members are usually isolated. Reference groups are those that matter to individuals, who are used by an individual to evaluate his or her own performance.

Group behaviour is very powerful and managers who ignore it will have greater difficulty in motivating people and installing change. In fact, the effective manager knows that the group standards, which can be raised slowly and steadily, can do much of the managing. People will work harder to remain accepted by a group which they admire or respect.

For more information on team development, working with others and group dynamics visit Call of the Wild's website.

Team Building Programme Today with Call of the Wild

This is the group we have had today. They have attended a two day team building event in the UK. These are apprentices from a well known UK Company.

For more information on our team building courses visit Call of the Wild's website

Become a Better team Player by learning from Geese

This is great short video piece on the instincts and behaviour patterns of geese and how we can become better team players if we mimic their behaviour.

For more information team working visit Call of the Wild's website

An Exercise to Work Out Who is in Your Work Team

Who is in your work team?

We tend to think that our team members are those in the same department or all those who report to the same boss. Actually, most of us find that we work more with people from other departments than we do with people in our own. See if this is true for you.

The Star Exercise shows just how complex everyone's job is and how many people we deal with daily. It shows how often we are internal customers ourselves and how often colleagues are internal customers of ours.

Instructions

1. Take a sheet of paper and draw a circle in the centre. Enter your name in the circle. This is the centre of the star.
2. Add circles around your circle containing the people, departments or areas who you deal with in doing your job. Most of these will be outside of your department.
3. Draw an arrow between each of these circles and your circle.
   • If you receive things (instructions, materials, information, paperwork and so on) from this person or department, draw the arrow with the tip towards your self.
   • It you give things (instructions, materials, information, paperwork and so on) to this person or department, draw the arrow with the tip towards that person.
4. Select the two or three relationships that are most important to your job. Highlight these with bolder lines

10 Reasons Why Teams Fail

These are 10 reasons put forward by Don Carew and Eunice Parisi-Carew as set out in Ken Blanchard's book "Leading at a Higher level."

1. Lack of sufficient charter that defines the team's purpose and how it will work together to achieve this purpose;

2. Inability to decide what cosntitutes the work for which they are interdependent and mutually accountable

3. Lack of mutual accountability;

4. Lack of resources to do the job, including time;

5. Lack of effective leadership and lack of shared leadership;

6. Lack of norms that foster creativity and excellence;

7. Lack of planning;

8. Lack of management support;

9. Inability to deal with conflict;

10. Lack of training and group skills.

There are others which could be included such as lack of role models, no perfomance meassurement, too many teams, not teams but groups, emphasis on individuals and a culture of competition will erode the ability of teams to perform.

For more information on high performing teams visit Call of the Wild's website.

Top Tips - Creating Exceptional Team Spirit

1. Convey a Positive Attitude

Your attitude toward the project conveys your confidence and commitment to the team.  Express enthusiasm for the job.  Encourage members to approach the job as a challenge rather than a problem.  Help team members understand they have your support.  Remind the team of the larger issues they are addressing and reaffirm your confidence that you will all feel proud of the results. 

2. Put the Goal in Context

Demonstrate how the team’s work relates to the organization as a whole.  Show links between and among the organization’s business areas.  Before going forward, take time to discuss opportunities for the members of the team to develop and shine.   If the team members are in the early stages of their careers, confirm that each feels the project is worthwhile and sees a chance to contribute.

3. Set High Standards

People are happier and more energetic when they have a clear picture of expectations.  Be explicit about the quality of work you expect, and about how you will measure that quality.  Provide formats for work.  Create detailed meeting agendas that will require a high degree of preparation.  Establish a work ethic early on that will require a strong commitment to the project.  Team members will feel you are treating everyone fairly if you expect everyone to maintain the same standard. Challenge team members to produce their best work.  Building confidence in their work, and trusting the work of others are essential to creating a strong sense of team spirit. 

4. Encourage Interaction

Provide opportunities for team members to work together.  Combine jobs to create cross-functional synergies. Allow the unique skills, talents and knowledge of each individual to complement those of the other members.  Give team members a chance to build working relationships.  These relationships are essential elements in a cohesive, spirited, motivated group. When possible, give team members latitude in their approach to problem solving.  Provide an opportunity for creative investigation and analysis.  Encourage people to share perspectives and ways ahead. This will help to create a sense of unified purpose and potential success.

For more information on creating high performing teams visit our website

Top 10 Tips for Organising a Team Building Event

1. Set objectives

Ask yourself why are we doing this? What do we want to get out of  this course or event. Is it just a  fun event, or do we you have specific issues to address such as improving communication. Is it just a getting to know you exercise?

2. Know and Agree Your Budget

There is nothing worse than going out to find an event supplier without knowing what you have to spend. Especially if you have to report back to the purse string holder after you have spent a lot of wasted time discussing programmes in detail with a prospective supplier.

3.Think about who you will taking

The objectives above will to a large degree help with this. It is unusual to have the same age range in your team who all like the same things. It is more likely you will have a wide age range who will have different ideas and fears about a team building course or event.

4. Get Buy in or Ownership

Keep them in the loop. Explain to them the reasons behind the event to allay their fears. Many people fear such events as they believe they are being put under the microscope and assessed by the  powers that be within the Company. Explain this is not the case and spell out the objectives.

5. Decide on the nature of the event

Low impact high impact, outdoors, indoors ? Again this will be determined by the objectives you set, the issues to be addressed and the individuals involved. You may wish to put people under pressure, you may want to put them in an unfamiliar environment. Alternatively you may just want some light indoor challenges.

6. Distance with overnight

Is this event being to be held locally or further afield. Are you going to stay overnight or just go for the day. This again will be determined by 1 and 2 above in particular. Budget will obviously play a big part in this decision. In our experience an overnight stay can add more value to an event as people can learn more about themselves and their colleagues with this itinerary rather than a single day close to home.

7. Venue  and geographic area of search

Once you have decided on an overnight stay or a local event you can work out relative travel times to  a mutually convenient part of the UK or Europe. This will be dictated by the choice of event to a degree eg outdoor wilderness, seaside etc. remember to factor in travel costs and decide on whether the travel time to and from an event is work or own time.

Top Tips For New Team Members to Hit the Ground Running

Making sure the new team member feels included and understands the role

1. Set a culture of rich pictures in well-crafted stories. 

When the shape of a team changes, nothing progresses a smooth transition like a good story.  Stories can break ice among strangers to create shared experience and camaraderie.  Stories can set the stage for working creatively, welcoming differences, and they can help people relax, share talents and keep calm when times get tough.  So make it a way of life to offer rich pictures in well-crafted stories. 

A rich picture is one with lots of detail.  It’s as if you were looking closely and then showing others what’s in your mind’s eye.  Use words about colour, shape, size, the mood and feel of rooms, interplay and relationships.   Here’s an example.

What a first day for Steve.  Poor guy came in drenched after running from the parking lot under the kind of sudden darkness and torrential downpour we tend to get at this time of the year. But, since it happens a lot, Ben brought out the big towel and a steaming cup of fresh coffee and Barbara told Steve her own first-day story, which everyone found pretty funny, and Steve agreed that after all he’d look back on this morning with a big smile.

The richer your pictures, the more powerful and lasting the shared experience listeners take away.  So don’t wait until you have a new team member to start your work with rich pictures.  You’ll want to be ready when someone new comes onboard. 

2. Advertise the new role as a team / context story.  

The more you can control the responses to an ad, the more cost effective the ad and the more likely you are to draw qualified candidates who will integrate quickly.  Making the ad a bit of a story can communicate both the job and the culture.  Here’s an example.

We started as two in 1987 and now we’re eleven, looking to make an even dozen who delight our clients with the most attractive interactive customer-friendly sites on the web and enjoy the pleasure of collaborative working in a warm, friendly environment.  Home working a definite possibility some of the time.

Tell stories at interview, too.  They offer a portrait of the cast, a twilight experience of the culture and some sense of the unwritten behaviour codes.

3. Before the new team member comes on board, let everyone know the new person’s credentials and at least one story about her or his prior work. 

Even if the organisation is small and typically you all speak face-to-face, it is useful to send an email, perhaps including the new team member’s CV/Resume but certainly including an introduction that is a rich picture.  Your aim is bringing the new person to life as an individual with a personality and a style, a sense of humour -- someone who will be a little bit familiar to everyone even before they all meet.

Day One

4. Wherever possible, bring the whole team together, whether remotely or in person. 

Use VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) that allows everyone to see one another using web cam.  Welcome the new team member with some company stories that leave no doubt about what it’s like to work on the team - roses and warts and all.  In fact, if it’s convenient, you might start at hiring time by involving some team members who’ll tell a story or two.

5. Promote collaboration by setting respect, compassion, openness, and integrity as the ground rules, and tell stories to show why.

Since there’s no time for politics, you’ll need to set the stage for collaboration. You want the new team member to feel collaborative and believe that the others will welcome, accept and trust  her or him.  Tell a rich-picture story about collaborating at difficult times.  State openly that you live by respect, compassion, openness and integrity, and then tell a short story about each one.

6. Ask some team members to tell a story about what the team will accomplish. 

Remind that every team member is a key protagonist in the story of how the whole team will meet the challenge.  Some people find it useful to compile the ideas, pictures, key players and anticipated futures into a document or even a drawing.  It may seem a bit naff or artificial.  However, the result is that the new person quickly knows the others as individuals, and the getting-to-know-you time goes down by orders of magnitude.

Nuts and bolts

7. Assign a mentor who’s a natural storyteller and who is primed to tell company stories with a point. 

You need a short learning curve, so either take the role yourself or identify one team member as mentor who tells stories that make points fast. If the team is ongoing, make the rotating mentor role part of what’s great about being on this team.

8. Regularly ask about how things are going. 

You want to pick up issues before they become problems.  You want to know whether a new person is adjusting quickly and whether any of the team see issues with the new person’s manner or work product.  Telling a story about something difficult is easier than making a complaint.  Use stories about how things are going for you to model the kind of stories you wish people to tell.

9. If you find there are issues or problems, bring the team together and tell the story of the issue or problem as you understand it. 

Include in the story some ways you see to resolve the problem. Your aim is to depersonalise the problem.  Here’s a snippet of an example.

You know, every time someone forgets that deadlines are responsibilities, not goals, customers call to remind us about how it is to deliver on time.  Remember?  ABC said they would buy from us even though our prices are higher because they can count on us to have the goods when they need them.

You want to present mistakes and problems as opportunities for development, and team members as sources of support for one another and ideas for solutions.  Telling a story with a problem and a good solution leading to a positive ending inspires people to work together with that story form as a model.

Inclusion complete

10. Is the new team member trusting, decisive, committed, self-confident and perhaps ready to mentor someone new? Look for clues in the stories people tell. 

The more people are trusting, decisive, committed and self-confident, the more productive they will be.  The more you foster these qualities right from the start, the more quickly a new team member will work hard, learn from mistakes, develop a loyalty to the team and a determination to do a quality job.

You might tell a story on the first day illustrating how trust, decisiveness, commitment and self-confidence can quickly see the new team member a happy, productive team colleague.

These tips reflect ideas in a paper by Dr. Madelyn Blair & Robert Clymire at Pelerei, Inc. a Washington DC area storytelling and consultancy firm.    pelerei@mac.com  . The article is taken from our Development Academy. For more information on team development, leadership and personal development visit our website.