How to Make Team Building a Priority at Your Company
Samantha Higgins
Your business will only succeed if the people who support it succeed. Team building is the most important investment you can make in your company and your employees. It must be your organization’s top priority.
Activities That Prioritize Teambuilding
Teambuilding does not happen by accident. It requires activities that are specifically designed to maximize team performance.
Virtual team building activities, like virtual escape rooms, serve as a bonding experience that allows the team to work together to address complex situations. Activities that are nonvirtual for team building, like multi-day team-building retreats, can build a deep bond between team members.
A team that works together well will trust one another. They can mitigate conflicts, communicate well, and collaborate as a team. Good team building leads to engaged employees. This bodes well for your company’s culture, growth, and productivity.
When team members learn to work together, they learn more about themselves as individuals. They are helped to identify their communication style and then make improvements when it comes time to communicating with others.
Activities that prioritize team building offer a break from the norm. They allow your team to reset and get refreshed. Your team can relax its collective mind and then approach new challenges and problems from a unique angle.
Build Team Cohesion While Doing Something Good
Playing games, going on retreats, and engaging in entertainment can help your employees create a shared cause. Having a shared cause eliminates awkward or forced small talk.
If you are looking for a way to encourage your team to work together better without having them compete against each other, consider volunteering. Volunteering allows you to build your team and do something good for the community.
Other positive yet non-competitive forms of team building include hiking trips, biking trips, or spending the day canoeing. Your team members are active, but they are not competing with each other.
There is nothing wrong with team-building days or team-building exercises that relate to the industry you work in. Employees can learn something new related to the trade and form a stronger bond with each other.
It does not need to be complicated. Simply sharing a meal together is a time-honored way of building strong relationships.
What is important is that the team feels motivated and relaxed. They should feel like they have done something that harnesses their strengths and allows them to work together.
Common Goals Create a Common Purpose
To put together an amazing team, you need to set clear goals. Imagine a football team that had no apparent goal or direction. There would be a bunch of people running through on a field with no purpose. They would go nowhere fast.
As a leader in your organization, you set the pace that your team follows. Having clear goals can help you choose the right people for your team based on the attributes that can make your team better.
From the beginning, your team should clearly understand your expectations. Your team should know what the expected outcomes are. And they should understand their role in the work being done and the decision-making process.
From time to time, present your team with problems that are difficult to solve and that require the team to work together to create unique solutions. You will notice that as your team works as a unit when they are focused on a purpose, they will understand how their individual roles influence the big picture.
Encourage Team building While Appreciating the Individual
While in a good team the needs of the many are prioritized over the needs of the few or the needs of the one, this does not mean that the individual is irrelevant.
Teams are composed of a diverse group of people who have personal goals, values, and opinions. All of this adds to the team's experience. Similarly, no two people work together in the same way. These differences must be appreciated. They add value to the team.
Conclusion
Team-building takes time and energy. You need to see it as an investment. Your organization will only be as strong as the team that you build. When a team has common goals and team cohesion, they will communicate well, work together well, and accomplish the tasks assigned.
About the Author: Samantha Higgins is a professional writer with a passion for research, observation, and innovation. She is nurturing a growing family of twin boys in Portland, Oregon with her husband. She loves kayaking and reading creative non-fiction.
