Trying Team Building
The atmosphere we work in today is a very different one indeed to that of just a generation ago. Regardless of whether the business is in the private sector or the public one, service industry or manufacturing, at every level, the expectations are for greater efficiency and even individual accountability.
These days it seems that all employees are under scrutiny to out-perform and improve, whether on the “shop-floor”, in lower, middle, or senior management.
The higher up the managerial ladder, the more focused the pressures can become, and can carry with them expectations and frustrations that can become self-defeating if they become overwhelming.
Dissatisfactions and frustrations can, albeit wittingly or unwittingly filter down through levels of staff, and affect other’s motivation, or productivity.
It could be time to try some team building exercises. Professionally designed team building exercises bring more than a temporary sense of enjoyment (‘though they will also do that!) they can help each and every person, whatever their role or title to discover realise their own potentials.
Team building allows colleagues to view each other in a different light, away from the normal workplace environment, which can open avenues and windows into characteristics which may never have come to light without it.
By leaving the workplace and its familiar atmosphere in which colleagues are labelled more by the job they perform than by being the people that they are, the opportunities are there to get know each other far better, and therefore help build a deeper and stronger team spirit.
It can be a wider designation than solely staff, as team building can be a first-class way of developing and cementing bonds with both suppliers and with customers.
The activities themselves can be tailored to suit any number of situations, and can be adapted in levels of necessity, physical, intellectual, laid-back or full-on, depending on the occasion and the participants.
Team building challenges can be employed as metaphysical warm-ups for those attending conferences, meetings, or even staff-training, as catalysts for ideas, concepts or innovations to come to the fore.
The activities made available by professional team builders are as varied as the teams themselves. Some view a serious challenge as white-water rafting, for instance, others may see treasure hunting or code-breaking as a serious challenge. What may seem to one group to be insurmountable problems, may, to another group seem way too easy, and present no challenge at all.
Team building, at whatever level, can deliver a healthy balance of enjoyment, involvement and team development, focusing and understanding.