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Team Building Takes Time
One of the reasons that “team building” has a dubious reputation is the proliferation of recreational experience providers that bill themselves as team building programs. Team building activities can take the shape of any number of experiences, but it is the facilitated discussion during the event that changes the activity from recreation to something more. Without discussion of the activity and its relationship to real-life, very little learning can take place, and still less lasting change is likely. The main function of facilitation is to provide the environment in which that integral discussion and reflection can take place.
The fundamentals of facilitation include:
- Providing a learning experience
- Providing an opportunity for reflection
- Offering tools and techniques to help teams integrate the learning into their day to day reality
- Offering strategies for continuation of the learned behaviors, in order to effect lasting change and improvement
Another common misconception about team building is that one single event can ‘fix’ whatever ails a work team. A day of team building, even with a skilled facilitator and a high-functioning team, is only the beginning. A one-day team builder is akin to seeing the tip of the iceberg. The lasting benefit comes from repetition and integration of the strategies learned in the one-day. In order to effect real change, the team must be able to replicate the learning environment and level of trust on a day-to-day basis. This type of learning can only take place when the facilitator has multiple opportunities to work with the team. In a one-day, the facilitator can plant the seed, but only with nurturing and care can the team blossom into its true potential.
Team Building Programs
Team Building
Traditional team building activities provide a participatory experience designed to enhance the effectiveness of team performance. The goal of our team building programs is to utilize challenging and interactive activities as tools for teaching valuable communication and problem solving skills, building a strong foundation of trust, and creating an environment that fosters creativity and healthy risk-taking.
Welcome to The NEXTeams Companies
All Hands On Deck - A Team Building Exercise
NEXTeams uses a combination of experience-based activities and traditional meeting-style techniques, but the true value of its facilitation comes through the conversations that organically emerge during the process. These spontaneous and often passionate discussions are where the change in the group dynamics takes place.
Team building, if done well, can be the catalyst to change within an organization. The only way that this change can be significant or lasting, however, is through effective and timely follow-up. The follow-up process helps the team to take the lessons learned during the team building activities and build upon them during the day-to-day interactions within their organization. Follow-up enables the transference of the gains made during the actual team building event.
Our Program Offerings:
Our Team Building Options -Traditional team building activities provide a participatory experience designed to enhance the effectiveness of team performance. The goal of our team building programs is to utilize challenging and interactive activities as tools for teaching valuable communication and problem solving skills, building a strong foundation of trust, and creating an environment that fosters creativity and healthy risk-taking.
- Portable Team Building
- Rotational Team Building Competitions
- ROPES Challenge Courses
- Team Project Events
- RACE Day Events
Our Adventure Instruction Options – One of the most powerful bonds we can make with the people we work with is through the shared experience of an outdoor adventure. Putting your life in the hands of one of your team mates, and relying on their judgment and skill is a true measure of one’s trustworthiness. Our Multi-Sport Adventure programs give small groups and teams an opportunity to form those bonds in an instructional setting, giving individuals new skills that can either serve as a once-in-a-lifetime experience, or set them on a lifetime of new adventures.
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Please Note: All of our Adventure Instruction programs can be found on the GO-Adventures website – home to the recreational team building and adventure instruction branch of The NEXTeams Companies.
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Adventure Instruction Programs Include:
- Rock Climbing
- Caving Adventures
- Wilderness Skills
- Adventure Weekend
- Geo-caching
- Adventure Sprint
Professional Facilitation - Combining the experiential education model with traditional facilitated meeting strategies, NEXTeams facilitators will create an environment in which a team can generate highly innovative ideas with increased buy-in from the members of the team.
The Typical Facilitated Session Process is as follows:
- Focus – Focus the team on the task/problem/process, etc… Take the time to be sure the team is clear on the objectives.
- Generate Ideas – Brainstorm ideas, categorize them, and define a system for prioritizing their importance.
- Decide - Based on the team’s priorities, select the ‘best.’ ideas and how to implement them.
- Act – Define the action steps necessary to implement the ideas, and follow through with acting on them.
- Follow-up and Renewal – Be sure to check in and measure the successes and failures of your action plan, and if necessary, go back to the first step and take a fresh start.
Our Facilitated Sessions Options -
- NEXTeams Process
- Meeting Facilitation
- Strategic Planning Retreats
- Focus Groups
- 360-degree Feedback
- Quarterly Re-Energizers
Our Objectives with Facilitated Sessions: Our ultimate goal is to give you the tools necessary to run your meetings without us by experiencing the way the meetings are facilitated by us. The main benefit of an outside facilitator is their ability to remain neutral, and to utilize proven techniques for keeping the team on target.
For More Information
Eriq Powers
The NEXTeams Companies
(240) 603-4150
info@nexteams.com
www.nexteams.com
Let’s Not Call It Team Building
As a provider of team building, retreat facilitation, and experiential training for organizational improvement, I make a point of researching the trends in my industry. With no shortage of information available on the internet, I am painfully aware of the confusion and the negative feedback that surrounds the ideas and the execution of activities under the umbrella of “team building”.
There are many companies that promote themselves as team building service providers. Here are just a few I found when I did a search for ‘corporate team building’:
- cooking
- murder mystery
- scavenger hunts
- board breaking
- bowling
- paintball
- fire walking
- sailing
- gym climbing
- ropes courses
- wacky olympics
- bike building
- pinewood derby racing
- white water rafting
and the list goes on…
Now, I’m a big fan of using a novel experience as part of a team building program, but I am skeptical about the level of facilitation and actual team development that goes on during these events. If I was a client looking for a team building activity, here is what I would want to know:
What type of facilitation is going on during the ‘event?’ Do the facilitators know anything about group dynamics and team development, or are they simply experts at taking the group through the activity or experience?
How do the facilitators transfer whatever is learned during the off-site back to the real-world of the workplace? Without some sort of debrief and discussion with regard to the group experience and the work experience, participants might as well be calling it recreation rather than team building. Without a well facilitated discussion, the ‘team’ is not building anything!
Once you have taken part in this experience, what do you do for the follow up? The number one complaint about even a well facilitated team building event is that while participants may have had fun and learned something about how to work more effectively as a team, as soon as they returned to the office on Monday, it was back to business as usual. Without a proper follow-up, there is no long-term value.
Too many of these companies that offer experiences without facilitation are giving team building a bad name. The only way a company off-site can hold any long-term value is if the experience is more than just bonding and fun. Real value comes with building trust between the members of the group, learning how to communicate more effectively, working through conflict, and creating an environment where members are committed to the mission of the team. When these goals are met, the team is ready to perform at its peak.
Let’s not lump together every activity that is offered for your company off-site and call it team building. If an organizer knows the right questions to ask, they can usually differentiate between the experiences that will have lasting value and the ones that will be short-lived memories. Although, I do have to admit – walking through fire sounds pretty cool…
Team Building Gets a Bad Rap
I just read another blog posting about how useless team building exercises are with regards to effective work teams. You know, the kind of article that starts out with a cliche about some ‘touchy-feely’ ice-breaker and what a waste of time it was. And have you seen the Geico commercial that shows the CEO taking a trust fall with the Gecko? Yikes! Team building really gets a bad rap!
It is unfortunate that there are so many poorly facilitated ‘team building’ programs out there. As a professional facilitator, I regularly hear from clients – and the blogosphere – about how ineffective their last company team building event was. I agree with the premise that ’silly ice breakers’ is not the way to build a high performing team, however, those ice breakers do serve an important purpose.
Ice breakers – silly or not – are designed to lower inhibitions. Inhibitions are what makes us hold back in both our introductions to one another and our daily working relationships. Lowering inhibitions creates an opportunity for a skilled facilitator to introduce techniques for building vulnerability-based trust between the members of the group. I don’t mean the ‘fall back and I’ll catch you’ cliche (although in some circumstances, that is still a powerful trust-building tool), but the kind of trust that allows individuals to step out of their comfort zone and suggest an idea that might be a flop, or might just lead to an innovation. The most effective teams have a bond that allows them to speak freely, listen actively, and remain open to new and possibly uncomfortable ideas. Professionally facilitated team building programs, as part of a broader team development effort, can create the space where innovation is commonplace – and sometimes an ice breaker is the way to get that process moving more quickly.
Making a Difference
My wife is a news junkie. She knows I am less enthusiastic about the sensationalism that is shoveled out in the typical newscast, and so she has mercifully stopped subjecting me to the local news, but the NBC Nightly News is still a mainstay. Although I generally don’t pay too much attention to the show, I have been enjoying the “Making a Difference” segment that highlights positive things individuals and communities have been doing to offset the “Economic Downturn.” This short and sweet segment seems to overshadow no matter what other terrible stories might have been highlighted previously.
One of the simplest and most effective things individuals, communities and the nation as a whole can do to snap us out of the recession is to think and act positively. Simply do something for others, focus on the ways that we can improve and move forward, and remember that regardless of how bad things might seem at the moment – THEY WILL GET BETTER!
My only complaint about the timing of the ‘Making a Difference’ is that it is always followed by the uber-sensational celebrity expose ‘Access Hollywood.’ Ugh!
Trust is at the Root of Innovation
I work part-time as a school teacher at a local Montessori school here in Maryland. My students are ages 3 to 14 years-old and one of the best parts of teaching them is the creativity and ingenuity they possess, seemingly without even trying. They share their questions, ideas and dreams with me, and we all benefit from the experience. The reason they tell me their ideas, no matter how outrageous they might be, is the bond of trust we share. The kids know they can share their ideas with me without worrying about me judging or mocking them. Trust lets us communicate freely, and the free flow of communication is where a creative idea has a chance to grow into an innovation.
Every one of us has the potential to think creatively. Unfortunately, so many of us don’t have trust in ourselves and the people around us, so whatever germ of a creative idea we have, we rarely share with anyone. Building trust is at the root of creating a space for sharing creative ideas and making room for innovation. Teams that trust one another are more likely to take the risks necessary to float a new idea. The expression “that idea is so crazy, it just might work!” isn’t mentioned in a group that does not trust its members. A team that in search of innovation needs to first find trust.
For some great ways to build trust between the members of your group, check out our team building options…
