Planning a Team Building Event? Do's and Don'ts

You must have, at some point in time, participated in a team building session, or planned one for your team/organization, or witnessed others going on a team building event. If yes, I am writing this piece for YOU!

Last year, I facilitated a team building event for a group of senior bankers on a mountain top in the serene northern areas of Pakistan, during which I realized that these events, if executed properly, can get very powerful in elevating team spirit (during and after the session) to deliver immaculate business performance (subsequently at work).

With my team at Learning Minds Group, I have managed such events for a good number of clients on a periodic basis, at a variety of locations, including beach, hotel resorts and offsite locations, and have captured a different, rather unique experience every time.

Of course, team building is FUN!

More than before, I believe that team-building events are a great way to facilitate bonding with your team members, reduce employee stress, and give them the chance to get to know one another outside of the office dynamics. Want to test my statement- Announce that you're planning a team building exercise for your staff, and watch their eyes roll.

However, here is the downside! Organizing a great team building event is not easy. Some team building events are not successfully designed, some are unsuccessfully executed, and some both. Certain executives also take this as a time waster exercise, or a collection of less meaningful (read: awkward) activities. 

Treasuring my experiential learning so far, here are some suggested “Do’s and Don’ts” for your next team building event:

DO ask “Why are we holding this team building event, and what do we expect to achieve?”. Unfortunately, many clients don’t have clear answer to this. To have an end in mind- a purpose- is crucial to planning a great team building session.

DON’T have the team building event in your office. Plan budgets to have team building sessions offsite. If you have to do it in office somehow, find an area in your building as far as possible from your working space.

DO leave job titles at the door. If senior people are not participating equally in the team building activities, or worst are sitting at a distance from the team members, you can smell signs of a failed team building event beforehand.

DON’T take ‘TEAM’ out of team building. Team building sessions that focus on individual differences over similarities don’t serve a long way in team building. Even worse is when individual contributors are rewarded in team building events. Huh! It’s like taking team out of team building!

DO make it unique every time. If your last and this team building event appears quite similar in theme and feel, it is NOT a healthy sign on the part of team building design! It should be a unique experience with freshly baked activities every time.

DON’T focus on Competition; instead try Cooperation activities. Too often we see team building events organized with teams fighting a contest. The intended outcome for that can be justified by some, but cooperation games are more on-purpose for team building events.

DO take external facilitators. In addition to the professional facilitation ‘skill’ and ‘style’, to have someone outside of your organization facilitate the event helps in two ways: First, participants don’t get to have biases and preconceived notions. Next, a new face brings in fresh thoughts and perspectives.

DON’T just assume one team building event will solve all of the department’s problems. It won’t. PROMISE! But used in the right way a team building event can be a great foundation to resolving issues. I suggest- take it as an opening ceremony and not as a single dose cure-all.

DO follow-up on lessons learned. It’s vital that follow-up sessions are scheduled post-team building event to reemphasize and measure on teams’ progress. Let’s say after 3 months, schedule a short ‘Refresher’ session, inviting the same participants to reflect on what worked, and what didn’t.

DON’T forget to acknowledge the organizers. Preparing a team building program is an energy consuming job. It works best to acknowledge the organizers in front of the audience, during or at the end of the session, for their time and effort.

Last Point- With organizations getting flat to be more competitive, and more cost-centric to be more productive, people- in general- feel as if they are already doing more than one job. In this context, team building is more important than ever to build employee engagement.

However, if you are still of the view that businesses can run without employee engagement and team building therein is not necessary, here is a simple analogy to it:

"An engaged employee will stop and pick up a piece of trash in the hallway, a disengaged employee will walk by the piece of trash and leave it, and an actively disengaged employee will throw the trash on the floor."

Now, you decide how you will plan your next team building event. All the very best!