Corporate team-building has moved away from hiring successfully, communicating skillfully, aligning expectations and holding people accountable, and veered into the realm of having fun. Don’t get me wrong–I am all about having fun. In fact, I often tell clients that if I’m not having fun I don’t want to work. However, I believe that companies have bought the distorted idea that corporate team-building means parties, retreats, sky-diving events, games and other sorts of activities designed to bring the team together. These types of events don’t bring teams or people together. Sure, people enjoy time off from work and the festivities that are part of these events, but such events do not build team spirit or connectivity if there was none to begin with.
So if parties and games don’t have a positive impact on corporate team-building, what does? Hiring right leads the list. When I was a recruiter I worked with companies and helped build out entire teams. Building a successful team means looking at more than just what technical skills the team may need. For example, do they need someone who is a cheerleader, or someone who has great attention to detail, or even someone whom others think is always negative? Teams can’t function well if everyone is the same personality type or of like mind on everything. You need a mix of the right technical skills and the right interpersonal skills for a team to jell and work together successfully.
Secondly, communication is paramount. Communication starts with creating clear expectations and then holding people accountable for their behavior and actions. Have you ever worked on a project where a few people did 90% of the work and the rest of the team members took credit or the accolades when the project was a success? If you were one of those who did the heavy lifting on the project, I suspect it frustrated the dickens out of you and didn’t go far toward building the corporate team. Management and the rest of the team have to hold people accountable for their commitments and actions. Without clear communication and accountability, individual team members can hide in the shadows, making it difficult for the team to work successfully together.
When individuals on a team enjoy working together, corporate team-building is the natural outcome. It isn’t something you have to create. As in all relationships, the members will have little spats, disagreements and challenges, and that’s healthy. They will also most often work through these problems without intervention on the part of management. That’s what makes a strong team. Have the parties, events, retreats and games when you already have a solid team. These corporate team-building events then will be enjoyable for the team to decompress, let go and have fun, which is what these events should accomplish. They aren’t meant to bring together people who are dysfunctional as a unit in the hopes of somehow making them functional.
© 2014 Incedo Group, LLC
