Team Building Events In Practice
Firms are run by teams. Management is a team or a group of teams or even a team of teams and physical manufacture is carried out by teams as well. For example, a building company has a team of office staff and a team of carpenters, plumbers, labourers, electricians and other tradesmen to do the work on site.
Unfortunately, the two teams rarely meet and an 'us and them' attitude can develop leading to a schism in the company as a whole. Team building and company events can help to mend that schism and unite the company in its object to expand the company and increase its earnings and that of its workforce by satisfying the objectives of its customers.
Team building activities are meant to prevent this division ever taking place and to repair it if management has not been observant enough to notice it coming about or too inexperienced to know what to do about it or to know that it would lead to trouble one day. These rifts between office staff and workers used to be widespread in the days whilst white collar workers tended to come from the middle class.
Indeed, numerous individuals even considered them desirable, in order to keep the workers in their place. Attitudes began to change with the advent of trades unions, but did not really begin to gain ground until the mid-Eighties and Nineties, although it might be fairer to say that some larger firms and even some countries were ahead of the trend. Smaller, more traditional businesses undeniably lagged behind.
Team building activities ought to be tailored to suit the employees that they are meant to unite. First let us distinguish between staff functions and team building. Each company should hold at least one staff party a year for individuals to mingle, meet and let their hair down.
Traditionally, this was the Staff or Firm's Christmas Party. I do not see any reason to change a tradition that worked well for decades, merely because not everyone is a Christian now.
Get real, they never were all Christian, it is merely that you have just become aware of it. You are not going to hold religious services, only have a meal, a few drinks and a dance. That will not cause offense to non-Christians. . Team building activities are far more structured and every event has an purpose or a quest that has to be concluded for that event to be brought to a successful end. Good team building activities give the team an unforgettable, extraordinary experience which will connect them together. It might also give the company something besides increased profitability.
A team building exercise in this genre could be to design a new firm logo or TV advert. Or solving a bottleneck problem on a production line or in the office.
One of the best team building exercises I ever attended was run by a builders' suppliers. Their company staff hosted an outdoor clay pigeon shooting event. Over the previous year, some members had been trained to shoot and teach others; some had studied sliver service and others had learned to cook. They produced a fantastic event for their 40 best clients which none of us or them has ever forgotten 25 years later.
Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a number of topics, but is now concerned with team building examples. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Small Team Building Activities