Ingredients of a Successful Teambuilding Event
At some point in 2016 or 2017 you are very likely to be either involved in planning an offsite / teambuilding event or will be attending one yourself. Eagle's Flight specialises in such events. The following points should be kept in mind if you are!
1. Leadership input. If you are planning such an event, in all likelihood you are trying to energise a team towards either the attainment of challenging objectives or engaging them with a changing of behaviours. This is not something that should be delegated. Leadership needs to be involved in the planning process to make sure the event is in keeping with the theme of 'this year's mission'.
2. Make it relevant. Companies say things like...This year we plan to increase sales by 15% by changing our go to market model and a reorganisation of our sales teams from a product to a sales region approach. But first - let's go paintballing!!! It's fun, but it's not relevant. Many organisations are dumbfounded when they speak to us about how we can deliver a thoroughly engaging, interactive, enjoyable teambuilding event that it actually relevant to what is going on in the organisation and can truly set the team up for success.
3. Build in time to Plan. Preparation is paramount. If you want to involve leadership and build relevance (points 1 & 2 above), time needs to be allowed for this. If you are partnering with an outside organisation, share the background to the event with them. Ask them to make the session relevant. Give them time to think about it and build or tailor something relevant to you.
4. Don't make it an isolated event. Really when it gets down to it, very often when organisations are engaging a teambuilding initiative, in reality they are seeking some sort of culture change. They would like to change the way employees behave, either in dealing with one another, in the type of business decisions they make or in their dealings with customers and the 'outside world'. Phil Geldart (Eagle's Flight CEO) talks about the Model, Coach, Require framework. Senior Leaders need to model the desired behaviours. Employees need to be coached in these and ultimately for there to be real change the organisation needs to require them. A teambuilding event is a tremendous tool in both modelling and coaching the behaviour changes. The event needs to be referred back to afterwards. Remember how in January we talked about needing to do X, Y and Z and how that even Eagle's Flight ran for us showed us why?
5.Value it. If you are the 'agenda holder' for the conference don't allow the teambuilding element of the agenda be seen as an optional extra. It is not a time where people may choose to leave and check emails etc. It is not a slot that can get 'bumped' for another PowerPoint presentation that somebody wants to add at the last minute. If you've done 1 to 4 above it's going to be a key session which will underpin how the team acts in the next year!
If you'd like assistance in making your teambuilding event relevant, memorable and engaging, be sure to get in touch.
