Congratulations to your new endeavor. From your sharing, I am sure that you are serious with the work that you do and the approach you plan to undertake. For that, you are already being strategic with your approach towards teambuilding intervention.

As I shared in my blog-post, there are many objectives and purposes towards teambuilding for different people. Therefore, understanding the conviction for teambuilding exercise is the very first step towards a strategic approach. Ask the “WHY” question. But the problem is this; we may not have the luxury to find out “why” or worst still, the stakeholder might not be ready to reveal the true reason.

But if you can have a glimpse of the “why” teambuilding, take it with both hands and manage it carefully. Keep asking “what” is that they want to achieve and “what” would considered a small step towards helping the team to move forward. Once you have gather enough ‘evidence’ for teambuilding, the design and plan to implement the session; which is the “how” would be your call to help the team.

You might want to consider the Tuckman’s model which I am sure you have knowledge about. It does give us a systemic breakdown of the team development stages in accordance to team behaviors. One way to use the model is to find opportunity to backload the stages to the team and mirror the behaviors to the team members after each teambuilding activities. Help them to discover the team-skills to move from one stage to another so that team awareness will be heighten towards the performing stage. One word of caution is that it may not happen in one teambuilding session. The sad thing about team development is not many stakeholders out there would take teambuilding as an organization development approach but often want quick fix for the team in trouble to reach optimum level of performance with minimum care.

There are many articles and concept on the subject which with contemporary technology it is not difficult to obtain. But I would encourage you to use your internal resources – “things that you already know and possesses” to go out there and exercise them. Nothing will come close to your own internal wisdom versus those recycled concept out there.

Keep in touch and let me know how it goes.

sincerely,
allen

I 100% agree with your above argument as i have experienced the phenemena first during the past 3 months.

I assited with three teambuilding initiatives and the senseless sequence of fun activities has baffled me and led me to search for the theoretical base or purpose behind teambuilding. It is a major seller among corporate companies at rather expensive rates and consuming a considerable amount of time. However as an HR profesional, I am not at all convinced that what I have seen has any corporate benefit or contribution towards performance.

Is there any articles on the subject that you would recommend for further reading. I have a major teambuilding session coming up in January and am hoping to compile a much more strategic outcomes based program, addressing specific elements through the activities and creating a very clear link to application in the workplace.

Any words of advice?

Regards
Elmar

Thank you, this article was indeed meaningful…

Glad you’ve fulfilled one of your “whatever you call it” (dreams seemed not appropriate, but I can’t find any suitable words).

And you also reminds me of something; when we grow up, we tend to want to explore “outwards” to our surroundings, but as we age, we tend to explore “inwards”, rediscovering ourselves.

I may be back in Feb. Catch up with you then.

Keep well and stay in touch!

I feel I am standing on the rim with you, maybe a little wobbly – but we and you will move this rim into wider spaces and the answers to your questions as you say, will be found in the hearts of those people in your culture who enter the conversation with you.

Much love and heartfelt support Allen, will look forward to up-dates and exciting discoveries as you “welcome the mystery” in your country. And thank you for your beautiful post.

Jenny B