5 Considerations When Planning Team-Building Events

Every team is different—boasting different strengths and dealing with different challenges—so why do so many team-building events look exactly the same? Unfortunately, many team-building activities today are fueled by industry clichés (think the all-too-familiar ropes course or “trust fall” exercise). The most successful team-building trainings, though, are those that specifically address organizations’ and teams’ unique challenges, goals, and opportunities. Here are five strategies that will ensure your next team-building event is a full-fledged success.

1. Consider the Objective

It may seem like the objective of team building is pretty straightforward—to build stronger teams. However, by getting specific about your objective, you’ll be able to design an event that speaks directly to your teams’ biggest challenges, or goals, so the training supports the transformation of their workplace reality. Instead of assuming a general, motivational objective of your team-building events, like simply working better as a team, consider specific questions such as:

• What dysfunctions are your teams consistently challenged by?
• How do your teams communicate? Are all voices heard?
• Do your teams have designated leaders?
• Are your teams innovative, or do they get stuck using what’s tried and true?
• Are team meetings productive, or do they inhibit productivity?

Designing your team-building events around specific and current issues your teams are facing is the best way to guarantee your events will feel relevant to all attendees—and make the biggest, measurable impact.

2. Know Your Audience

Again, planning a successful event is all about getting specific—in this case, knowing your audience. Is your event exclusively for your frontline employees or the C-suite? Are the teams attending newly formed, or have they been working closely together for years? When you pinpoint the specifics of your audience, you can tailor your content to speak specifically to their needs, objectives, competencies, and experience.

3. Decide Whether to DIY or Hire the Experts

It’s a decision that will affect your event budget and ROI: whether to design and implement your activities in-house, or work with experts who bring an outside perspective and years of experience to the table. If you’re tackling a new objective with your team-building events, or if the ROI from your past events hasn’t been as high as you’d hoped, then hiring outside experts might make more sense for your next event. Another option may be to combine your event team’s skills with those of experts who can train your trainers to run effective events. If you decide to go the expert route, be sure to research and work with experts with proven track records and who are able to tailor their trainings to your organization’s specific needs.

4. Balance Cost and ROI

We’ve mentioned ROI a few times already, but that’s because determining what success looks like before you plan your event is crucial. Deciding how to measure the success of your activities beforehand allows you to “work backward.” Once you know how you will measure the success of your event, you can tailor your event to help your teams reach the predetermined goals. Plus, designing your event with ROI in mind means you’ll be constantly thinking about the practicality of your event—such as, how it will affect your attendees’ day-to-day lives on the job. Providing solutions to real-world problems through effective team-building training is the best way to maximize ROI. So, while cost is obviously a consideration, be sure to balance it with ROI. A low-budget event may save you dollars in the short term, but if the return isn’t measurable, you will have lost the chance to implement truly valuable skills and behaviors.

5. Make It Fun and Engaging

Should team-building events be fun? Absolutely! Creating engaging events will keep your attendees’ attention from start to finish. More than simply getting attendees excited, inject a dose of hands-on fun, which actually helps with retention. If you’ve ever had to deal with a low-energy crowd at an event, you know that when attendees don’t truly engage with content, whatever you’re trying to communicate is just not going to stick. Utilizing engaging, hands-on, and downright fun training techniques—such as discovery-based experiential learning—increases the chances that your teams will remember and implement your training long after the event ends.

 About the author

Ian has been with Eagle’s Flight since 1997, and is Executive Vice President, Global Accounts. He holds an MBA in Finance and Marketing from the University of British Columbia. Ian spent 12 years at Nestlé Canada and brings a wide range of experience that includes practical business experience in management, sales, program design, development and mentoring. He works closely with the Global licensees to ensure their success as they represent Eagle’s Flight in the worldwide marketplace. He has developed outstanding communication skills and currently is the Executive in Charge of a large Fortune 500 client with a team of employees dedicated to this specific account. As a result, Ian has been instrumental in driving the company’s growth and strategic direction.

 Re- Blogged From :- Eagle’s Flight