Team Building
I strongly believe in team building to relieve stress and to create a positive work environment. Are there any suggestions out there on team building activities that we can implement on a weekly, daily, or monthly basis?
Team buildiing can bring purpose to your employees for what they do. Performance with purpose reduces stress. We all work with a license from society for what we do. This license gives us purpose. All emplyees are first mothers, fathters, wives, and someone's child. This commonality helps to build teams even with diversity of culture. Facing hard challenges is better with a team effort. It is a plus when you have a person to go to for advice or counsel and maybe just motivation.
Though they sometimes appear simplistic or juvenile, I've found that activities and challenges that require a group to solve a problem are the most helpful. It also helps to have an uninvolved observer note the different roles each member of the team takes and how attitudes, comments, and behaviors impact everyone.
Tons of potential activities can be found just by searching online.
Group Activities.. Sports, etc.
Physical activity is always good for the stress levels and it cleans out the thought process. As you progress in your leadership skills you will find a good many ways of diverting your stress into productive thought process.
Please checkout "You Tube" with John Medina with his comments on "Brain Rules" regarding exercise.
i think team meetings are so helpful. We call them wisdom wednesday meetings. we all share ideas and thoughts and get each other excited about our different goals.
Stakeholders are the team. It is a must to keep them in the loop with all forms of communication. When anyone is left out it causes for a vacum in their thought process. They are trying to understand why they were not part of the team. Contributors to a challenge will perform better if they are informed. Place strong people on your team and you will have a better outcome in the end.
I work with an Action Business Coach, and one of the things that is suggested for the team is to start each meeting letting people express what they are feeling and thinking. We start our coaching sessions with, "What I feel like expressing is......" and go on to tell what we are thinking, feeling etc. This is a great way for team members to air issues in a constructive way, to let others know what has happened in their week, etc. No one is allowed to interrupt or speak while the person is sharing. No commentary is said after words, it goes to the next person and they share. This way everyone gets heard, everyone is validated and there is no pot left simmering to burn someone later.
I worked with a company that would meet in the mornings for an hour then everyone would go off to wherever for the remainder of the day and return at the end of the shift. The only teamwork present was during that hour in the morning. What worked is that each day one person was in charge of creating a teamed 5 to 10 minute game. It boosted energy, morale, put everyone in a good and fun mood and enabled us to work with each other in a positive fun manner, and we all looked forward to that short 10 minutes every morning.
This was a good activity as long as everyone would buy into the purpose of the game acitivity. It is always important to be clear why we are doing something. This acitivity has merit but the introduction of purpose needs to be reinforced on a regular basis or it will lose its steam.
preventing individualism to where it hurts the group. Now I don't mean that I hampered people from putting themselves into the project, but I did not let someone get too far out in front. It keeps people from not doing the part and by allowing everyone to contribute in someway. This is where my earlier post about using squirt guns at a meeting to "hose down" negative thoughts or negativity towards each other really worked as that 10th meeting came around. I did not need towels anymore. It also has to do with respecting each others contributions to performance. and we had some laughs too!
We have staff meetings every Friday morning to come together and share updates and strategies for improving. We make sure to keep the meetings casual and fun - the boss will sometimes even cook us breakfast. This chance to laugh together and brainstorm together greatly improves the morale and the team feels stronger everytime.
Meeting in a relaxed situation keeps the total group involved. When tension rises there are only a few who are better in confrontational situations. It most cases the casual format can be used. In some crisis situations it is not possible to produce such an environment.
I agree that team building is a good idea. I think getting together and doing some thing that is fun and educational can build good teams and can be done fairly regularly. For example, taking your team to a new opening at a museum or a new technology exhibit.
Anytime you can transfer ownership to your team it allows for an easier transition to the task at hand. Communication is 87% listening and the remaining is verbal or composition. If the team understands and buys into the process and acitivity and they feel like a stakeholder the process becomes much easier.
Team building activities are good when they create and activity where the team can communicate and relate to each other.
Activity planning must be for each of the team members experiencing some motivation to work together.
