Definition of ‘team’
“A collection of accomplished people coming together for a common goal that needs completing and helping each other to achieve it”
Do people simply come together as teams in the workplace? Do they naturally work together in harmony? Make the most of each person’s skills and explore better ways to do things in a supportive environment? Can they simply deliver greatness by accident? Or, are highly performing teams carefully selected for their personal skills, qualities and attributes? Are they developed through careful planning, training and coaching? Do they have the support of highly inspirational leaders that provide and promote opportunities for personal development that allow the team and its individuals to flourish?
Taking part in bespoke team building days and practical challenge exercises that everyone can get involved in can help your team to achieve all of this.
Surely one of the aims of every leader and manager is to create a working environment where:
- Everyone shares a common goal and helps each other work towards it.
- They understand what actually motivates people to perform in the workplace.
- Collaboration, innovative thinking and creativity are encouraged.
- Performance is boosted.
- Competitive spirit is promoted.
- Highly effective communication is developed.
Good team building days create exactly this type of environment. They can help your team to learn about some of the consistently present component parts that exist in top teams and through highly skilled facilitation. They can compare how your team measures up, as well as identifying where the strengths of each of your individuals and your team lie and where also, you need to develop and improve. To help you develop your team’s performance, why not try a team building day as part of your team’s training and development?
What’s stopping you?
Perhaps you haven’t yet because when you think of these team building days you picture something entirely different. Days that incur huge expense and can only be achieved with large amounts of time, equipment, land and the support of specialist companies.
Well, I have been on some of these days and in some cases they were fantastic, enjoyable and definitely promoted and helped with the development of a team’s togetherness and performance.
However, team building workshops that are well designed and expertly delivered can also be as equally enjoyable and worthwhile if they are classroom-based and relatively inexpensive.
It’s important when designing team building workshops that they:
- Are fun.
- Involve everyone.
- Encourage Innovative thinking.
- Challenge current thinking and behaviour.
- Are informative and educational.
- Promote effective communication.
- Have structured debriefing to identify further training needs and lessons learned.
Team challenges can be classroom based and often require very little equipment or space.
The real value of team building days – if delivered properly – can be highly valuable. They provide teams with an opportunity to get away from their normal work routine getting to know their colleagues better. They can help delegates recognise their own and others’ skills and expertise. Or accept some of their weaknesses and identify areas where they can improve. Also they encourage work in a challenging but controlled environment that requires innovative thinking, collaboration and open minded learning.
If you want to learn about a team building day and activities to suit your team’s development needs, please get in touch on 01536 215240.
Graham Ravenscroft
Leader Performance Coach
Gateway HR