How a Team Building Activity Goes Wrong
By Will Bicknell
You know a team building activity had gone badly when your team is discouraged, or mocking the activities, or simply not reacting at all. Team building activities are difficult to organize by nature.
These exercises are a method of teaching and of course, the art of teaching is a gift not common to everyone. This does not mean however, that a non-educator would be incapable of such a task. It can be done - it simply requires a thorough understanding of the team building principles and a lot of preparation.
Ways In Which Team Activities Go Wrong
One way in which team activities fail is because the one teaching fail to inspire their “class” of team members. This is not necessarily the failure of the individual teacher, though natural charisma can be very helpful. The problem may be that the activities themselves are not exciting, not particularly educational and are perfunctory in manner.
Team building activities are not “work meetings”, i.e. designed to simply lecture a group of people on what is or is not acceptable. Team activities are designed to accelerate team performance, by improving relationships and refocusing groups towards a common goal. Lecturing a team is not effective team building. Workshops can be an effective exercise, but can also be tedious, depending on the style of delivery.
Additionally, an activity that is too much fun, or even too absurd, can also be a failure. In the case of a social activity that was too over-the-top, workers will not only feel discouraged and unconvinced, but may also feel used and resentful at whoever organised it.
Why?
Because the person organising the event showed a lack of knowledge or even a lack of respect for their audience. The person teaching the team building activities must know who they are teaching, what they already know, and what they need to learn.
How To Organise a Successful Team Activity
The key to successfully organising an event is to prepare according to whatever you hope to accomplish. If you are teaching a team the importance of working together, then you should incorporate group activities that emphasise these principles, not games that work towards improving self-expression or self-discovery. Ideally, team members should:
- Enjoy the activity, meaning that fun and laughter is allowed
- Learn something from it, meaning that the goal of the company and of the team is represented and incorporated into the activity
- Be instructed to apply the new training in their daily work routines
- Be regularly trained to improve upon what they know.
Without these primary factors, a team activity can easily become wasteful or tedious. Whether you are teaching children in school, adolescents in sports, or workers in a company, they all have one thing in common: they are there to work, to learn and to improve their professional worth. So make sure that your team building activities accomplish a goal and teach each member the value of their team.
