How do you design a team building activity that aligns with your goals and values?

Start with a team meeting and make sure you communicate values that reflecting on the combination of personal and professional. Feeling and Logic on a fine balance.

Team building activities can have a bad reputation in some businesses as those who are invited (or told to attend) are unsure of the purpose and how it relates to them. What has worked well for me in the past is consulting with the team prior to designing the event and understanding what will make it worthwhile for them, individually and collectively.

Team building is temporary, culture is enduring. Build positive cultural influences into the organization. Managers need better training on influencing and building culture daily as opposed to relying solely on a team building event.

In my experience, having a clear course of action and knowing the following make team building exercises successful: - Your team understanding the goal of the exercise. - knowing each individual team member and understanding what value they will gain from the exercise. - Conflict’s that may arise during the exercise. - Open conversation of possible successes and challenges the exercise may bring to the group. - Taking a “vote” before scheduling the meeting with the team regarding, what kind of exercise. I’ve always chosen something engaging, fun, and interesting for the groups. Examples: Escape rooms, traveling meetings, Myers-Brigg personality understanding, etc.

I totally agree with this. In any team, you will have a mix of backgrounds, beliefs, values, personalities etc. Be sure to consider the makeup of your team and what will appeal to each individual and the team as a whole. It can be tricky so if you're not sure whether a certain activity will work for someone, ask them upfront. Often people are concerned about 'spoiling the surprise', don't be. Some members of the team love the element of surprise, others find it daunting and therefore find it hard to bring their best selves. I would always rather know and be able to change an activity in advance than run the risk of offending someone or them being so far out of their comfort zone they are unable to contribute.

This is a point that is so often missed and yet the most valuable. If you're investing time and money into a teambuilding activity, the richness is in consolidating the learning at the end otherwise why bother in the first place? Some questions around interaction and relationship building with each other are also useful for example; What did we learn about each other? What contributions did we each bring? What strengths have we spotted in each other? How can we leverage these back at work? What behaviours did we experience that were unhelpful to the team? How can we minimise these in the future?

Team building activities are fun and constructive, but the euphoria wears off and you’re back to square one in a matter of months. What really gets a team going is a dynamic leader who takes the time to know their team and help each achieve.