Successful and effective team building is based on six fundamental elements. First, a team building strategy requires having a mix of personalities, fostering trust, and ensuring open communication. Additionally, team building events should be based on encouraging teamwork through cooperation and excellent leadership skills. If these six elements are the basis of your team building events, your organization will flourish and grow.
Some team leaders make the team building mistake of not having long-term objectives. Although team building exercises should be relaxed, fun, and enjoyable, they should also include a learning element.
Additionally, it would be a mistake to think that getting several employees together in a group makes a good team. Unfortunately, not all workers are natural team players and like to go it alone.
Why does your organization need to organize team building activities? How can you ensure that these team-based events are a profitable investment to your company’s success? How can team activities enhance company culture and foster better workplace and interpersonal relationships?
This article answers these questions and more. At the end of the article, you will know how to build the best teams that are an asset to your organization.
Why Team Building Events Are Crucial for Organizational Success
Team building is crucial for success because it helps your organization function with a common goal. Events and activities for team building strengthen communication skills, boost engagement, increase motivation, raise morale, enhance team synergy, and increase productivity. For organizations concerned about building a strong culture, team-based activities are crucial.
However, the benefits of team building extend beyond the office walls. Employees who participate in team building activities become happier, enjoy more job satisfaction, have positive relationships, and are less likely to leave their jobs. The result is better employee retention, increased revenue, and a happy workforce.
If team building events can help reduce employee turnover, consider how much your organization could save. For example, Gallup reports that the cost of replacing a single employee can be as much as one-half to two times their annual salary.
The Six Elements of Team Building Activities
Team building processes are useful to develop a wide range of skills necessary in the workplace. These include Blue Ocean thinking, time-management skills, active listening, empathy, collaboration, delegation, and project management. And the list of team building benefits goes on.
However, six vital elements are key to every team building event. Let’s examine these in more detail.
1. Develop leadership skills
A key element of team building is to use the activities to develop leadership skills. Even individual team members need certain leadership skills to move projects forward. Additionally, leaders need interpersonal skills to develop trust, show respect, and share responsibility.
Effective team leadership involves more than just giving commands demanding results. Each individual leader must know how to communicate with clarity, define team roles, motivate individual members, and achieve team goals.
How can leadership training be incorporated into team building activities? For example, FullTilt organizes an Authentic Leadership event. This event teaches individual team members to tackle any project with confidence. The result is that workplace synergy and team morale improve.
2. Encourage diversity in team building exercises
Diversity in teams is an essential element for making team dynamics more powerful. Each team member brings a specific set of social, technical, and professional skills. In addition, diversity in gender, race, and age help teams become more creative and innovative. It also helps to include employees from several departments.
How can you ensure diversity in team building processes? When organizing team-based events, ensure at least three different types of people are involved in each group. This results in each person bringing a unique perspective to the activity. In addition, make sure that everyone is comfortable with the process and has an equal chance to participate.
Team building in large organizations is also vital to break down silos. For example, arrange that groups in team building events departments have participants from various departments. This way, you foster trust and excellent communication in the workplace on an organizational level, not just a departmental level.
One excellent team building event to encourage learning through diversity is the Behavior Style 360 Degree Matrix. This fun event helps team members learn more about each other. In addition, they can benefit from the diverse range of behavioral styles, talents, and communication skills each member brings.
3. Use team building processes to develop trust
A vital element of team effectiveness is that each team event helps develop an atmosphere of trust. A cohesive team only works well when each member has a sense of safety. It means the members can rely on each other, confide in others, and feel confident about sharing their opinions.
Unfortunately, an absence of trust erodes the unity of a team. It usually results in members working individually, not sharing ideas, and getting involved in office politics.
One of the best and most fun team-based events for building trust is “Kidnapped: A Rescue Mission.” The event is based on a mock kidnapping scenario. Team members must collaborate by assigning roles, communicating clearly, and showing mutual trust. This team event is useful for the following outcomes:
- Team cohesiveness
- Conflict resolution
- Task prioritization
- Mutual trust and decision making
- Independent initiative and teamwork
- Awareness of why relationships are crucial
4. Strengthen communication skills
A core element in team building is to communicate openly and with clarity. Good communication is not about speaking words. Instead, it involves getting your message over clearly and concisely. And it includes active listening, including being able to discern what isn’t being said and asking questions for clarity.
Improving communication skills is a vital element of team building because it affects employee morale. Team members working at cross purposes and who lack understanding produce poor outcomes and negative team performance. This impacts employee behavior, causing them to become disengaged from the company.
One of the best team building events to improve communication is Mission Incredible. This outdoor team-based activity is suitable for corporate retreats in a city of your choice. Our expert facilitators assign various responsibilities and tasks to enhance the following skills:
- Communication as a leader
- Delegation
- Planning and time management
- Problem-solving under time constraints
5. Emphasize collaboration in team-based activities
Collaboration is key to effective teams because it creates a positive environment where people work together toward a common goal. Collaborating on a task or project requires listening to opinions, contributing ideas, and coming up with the best solutions. This results in greater innovation and creativity.
Accepting diversity in the workplace is another benefit of collaboration. Everyone on the team should have the ability to be patient and show understanding and empathy. Team building teaches team members how to collaborate effectively and respect and accept differences.
If you want to boost workplace efficiency and inspire innovation, then the Domino Effect Challenge is ideal. The objective is to create an innovative and inspirational machine that will complete a basic task in an elaborate and elegant manner. Teams must work to a budget and come up with the best solutions.
6. Teach teamwork
A common element of all team building events is that they teach teamwork. Fun and engaging activities help everyone to work toward achieving team goals. It requires knowing when to take charge, compromise, and relinquish control when necessary. This leads to enhanced workplace satisfaction and better productivity on a team and organizational level.
Teamwork can be taught through role-playing, group discussions, and other fun activities. In addition, team-based events promote personal development to help individuals grow professionally and personally. They encourage employees to learn skills that would otherwise be impossible to learn.
One of the best team building activities to teach teamwork and empathy is our End Hunger Games event. Teams must win non-perishable food items by completing a series of challenges. This event gets participants to focus on teamwork and communication. As a bonus, the food items are donated to a local food bank charity.
The Skills Team Building Activities Teach
Like many business processes, the benefits of team building exercises are continuous. Employees who participate in these events develop new skills and abilities that make them more productive and efficient. These include the following:
- Leadership: All team members must develop leadership skills. Effective teams require an overall leader and individual leaders within the team. Otherwise, teams can fall apart if the leader is missing.
- Trust: To foster trust, you can promote teamwork by organizing team building events such as icebreakers. Employees can learn to depend on each other to deliver quality products, meet deadlines, and achieve desired outcomes.
- Empathy: Team building allows every member to develop empathy. It helps to deepen bonds in teams by breaking down barriers, thus fostering understanding and compassion.
- Delegation: Team building events teach leaders to delegate responsibilities. They also help members to take charge of delegated tasks and learn when to ask for help.
- Conflict resolution: If you get the six elements of team building right, you will help prevent conflict in the workplace. This is because team building breaks down barriers to communication due to poor listening skills, differences in perception, and working solitary.
The Six Elements of Team Building — In Conclusion
When you remember the six factors that make team building effective, your efforts to build a strong, productive team become more rewarding.
Organizing successful team building activities results in numerous benefits for your company and its employees. First, you gain valuable insights into what works and what doesn’t. Additionally, you improve your bottom line by increasing employee morale and boosting productivity.
Contact FullTilt Team Development today at 310-400-6285 or use this online form to learn more about planning and organizing successful team building events. In addition, we can assist in developing a team building strategy to meet your company goals, budget, and requirements.