Teamwork and team building have been hot business topics for many years. As a result, many businesses and associations have offered team building seminars, events, speaker and retreats, with varying degrees of success. The money spend on such programs is in the millions annually.
Participants at such events, like special events and retreats on any topic, often report a short term burst of enthusiasm for teamwork, but the hard reality of the daily grind quickly moves people back to where they were before the training. Occasionally however, an event seems to "stick" and make a difference in the team and in the workplace over the long term. What's the difference between team training that works, and events that simply cost money and get people out of the office for a few hours or days?
The Pre-Event Process
One major factor in an effective team building event is the inclusion of a process that begins well before the event. This includes interviews of key leadership by the seminar presenter, surveys of potential attendees to elicit their perspective, and a review of the past team development efforts and their lasting effect on the business or group in question.
Of those ideas, the most strategic data gathering practice a team building seminar leader can engage in is to survey the entire team, with the assurance of anonymity. Participants MUST know that their responses cannot be traced back to them. Even a simply survey that asks "What are the greatest strengths and challenges of the team?" will give incredible insight to the seminar leader, insights that the workplace team leader may not yet be privy to.
The Event Structure
An effective team building seminar needs to be shaped to allow for a proper balance of content and application. While the pre-event survey can make even the general content more relevant than past events, there still needs to be space for processing at the event itself, otherwise people will return to the rush of their daily life and possibly never get around to thinking through the implications of the concepts they've learned.
In terms of the content being taught, it is very helpful if there is a well rounded definition of team that is explained in such a way that the group now has a common understanding of "team" or "teamwork." There are many different ways of describing these things, some more effective than others in creating a shared vision, however the important issues is that there is a common concept, a shared ideal in the minds of all team members when it comes to these foundational terms. Beyond this important starting point, there are many different directions the content can be shaped, based on the needs of the specific group, but important themes include team communication, team trust, team motivation and team evaluation.
When it comes to application, there are two very helpful ways to facilitate the transfer of the concepts into the workplace. One is to allow for both large and small directed group discussion of the principals shared, with specific application ideas being the goal. Consensus around a single application idea is far better than many different people going home with their own idea of what needs to happen.
The other important component in facilitating application are team activities that reinforce the theory portion of the event. Many more active, often outdoor, team building events focus on activities that teach generic team principles, but fail to anchor them in the team context. An event that is shaped by pre-event research, and which contains solid team theory, can use the active team building exercises to lock in the theory which has already been applied to the groups team context.
The challenge with this ideal team building seminar is that there are very few organizations that do both the theory and the active application well. However, some insightful training organizations and partnering with others according to their specialties. For instance, an organization that generally runs outdoor team building events will partner with a team building speaker, giving a half day to the inside training and a half day to the outside application exercises. Corporate team building seminars structured in this way are vastly more effective than simply rappelling or going on a difficult hike together.
One other often absent component in team training is a focus on creating a value and passion for team. It is one thing to understand team principles, it is quite another thing to believe in teamwork, to have a passion for building and strengthening teams. Effective team building seminars have content designed to create this passion, as well as a facilitator who is truly excited about the topic and the great possibilities of teamwork.
Post Event Follow Up
The final component of effective team building seminars is a post event process that reminds participants of both the concepts and applications they have learned. This can happen through something as simple as an email autoresponder series- which is in fact surprisingly effective and cost effective. It could also include phone calls to individual team members for coaching and consultation, a post event survey, or a planned follow up event, where the team building speaker gives a follow session to reinforce what happened at the larger event. While this can sound- and actually be- quite expensive, many team building seminar leaders will include follow up at a greatly reduced rate, and in fact will be gratified by an organization that takes their team development so seriously. Finally, team leaders can use the regularly scheduled team meetings as an opportunity to review notes and share how the teamwork principles are being applied.
Not all corporate team building seminars are created equal. An training that includes a pre-event survey, a blend of theory and application, and a well thought out post event follow up process will give a far greater ROI than a team building retreat held at even the most exotic location.
