What would happen in your office if the manager announced that the firm was going to introduce some team building exercises? Twenty years ago in the UK, only a few American companies and a couple of Japanese businesses went in for it – the rest of us made fun of them. Ten years ago, a friend of mine was in a firm that encouraged chanting and singing before starting work each morning.

He said that being British, it was difficult at first, but enjoyable and useful after a couple of days. The practice is still not widespread, but it is certainly catching on. Not so much the communal chanting of mantras and the communal singing of the company’s song as the staff turn their computers on together in the morning, but weekend team building exercises. Most people would enjoy a free weekend’s vacation, even if the excuse is a business activity.

The fact is that many of the biggest and most successful companies in the world spend money on team building events. If they are doing it, there is a good reason for it and that is that team building works. Google, Microsoft and Coca Cola have faith in team building activities and you cannot get any bigger than that.

However there are a few risks to be cautious of. You know that you are overdoing team building if:

a] people accuse you of treating them like a machine and not as a person

b] the process of ‘doing’ becomes bogged down in never-ending open debates

c] teams become frightened of taking tough decisions, because it might hurt a team member’s feelings

d] the team’s identity hinders the rise of natural leaders, especially during difficult times

This means that team building is vital enough to be taken seriously, but that it has to be monitored so that the team’s identity does not interfere with the reason for the team’s existence – making money. The company should come first, then the team with the separate team members not a long way behind.

Team building events should be suitable for the team. They have to take into account the age groups in the team and the probable physical abilities of the members. It would be no use a team leader organizing a weekend rock climbing for a team whose average age is fifty and whose fitness level could at best be described as sedentary.

Sometimes it is practical to build teams across departments, so, for instance, if someone in every sales team liaises with accounts, those people from all the sales teams could go on a team building event with the accounts department so as to become better acquainted with one another.

Team building activities do not have to be adventurous, costly or involve a weekend away either. How about using the company’s kitchens (or hiring a kitchen) for, say, four teams to design, create and bake a company pizza?

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on a variety of topics, but is now involved with team building activities for teenagers. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Small Team Building Activities

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