Team building events have grown considerably over the last twenty years and it is commonplace for organisations today to hold team building in Leeds at either department or company level at least once a year.

One of the main reasons is that most managers today believe team building events are able to bond organisation members together both horizontally (between subordinates) or vertically (between managers and subordinates). If however, the concept of team building is not fully understood then the desired outcome may not be achieved and the team building event might end up merely as “a trip to the park”, a one night stay at a nice hotel or an afternoon of games. The concept of the rationale behind the team building needs to be well understood to maximise the benefits for the time and money spent on team building in Leeds.

What is Team Building?

Team building is interaction among members of work teams to learn how each member thinks and works. Unfortunately, in today's practice, the focus upon team building can be misinterpreted. The key phrase here is "to learn how each member thinks and works". Team building events therefore should go beyond the idea of a "trip to the park". They have to allow for learning about how each member of the team thinks and works in relation to the workplace. However, some team building companies today commonly use team building events to simply ‘encourage’ people to work together rather than using the team building to learn about how each team member actually thinks and behaves.

The common message inherent in most team building events is "you must all learn to work as a team". Successful Leeds companies do more - they provide a structured opportunity to help team members learn more deeply about how other individuals operate in the workplace.

As children special efforts to learn to work with others were unnecessary because children live and grow together. As we get older, we learn to become more sceptical of others and this is often culturally reinforced. We are no longer as naïve in our ideas about other people as we were as children. This, combined with the rapid shifts in workplace environments and the changeover of personnel, eventually makes it harder to work as a team and so for Leeds companies corporate team building becomes an integral part of maximising corporate performance.

Adults are more inflexible in accepting changes and other people’s values because as we grow, we become more inflexible and intolerant of others. We may not accept others views and opinions and therefore may not so easily change ourselves so that we can work effectively with colleagues - we forget that we should try to compromise as we work along. For companies simply to ask adults to work together is therefore not the answer – adults need the benefits that structured team building brings.

Effective Team Building in Leeds

Working together takes time and it takes effort - adults will not simply learn to work as a team from a one or two day team building event – you often find that some people may not even gel together after years of being in the same office. Simply asking people to work as a team is not an adequate philosophy – it requires thought and work. Teams have to experience and understand other people's ways of working and being in order to really believe in their capacity to find effective ways of working together as a team. Therefore, team building events alone are not the answer to all failing teams but must play an important role as part of an overall strategy.

Leeds corporates that wish to make their team building events practical and beneficial allow for interaction in the knowledge that it facilitates and leads to understanding. The simple “trip to the park” will not just work. It may promote interaction and everyone may have a good time, but if it is not structured, the best that could be remembered about their team building is that they ‘had a good time’. Team building has to be structured and you must first carefully consider your objectives. At what level is it that you want your guests to interact and work as a team? Bear in mind the purpose of interaction is to create understanding, and understanding will help individuals know where their colleagues are coming from and why they act in a certain manner. Useful information could be gained - the person’s family background, their pastimes and hobbies, their friends. All this may simply surface from interaction, but generally this needs the more structured prompting which comes from a well considered and organised team building event.

Effective team building needs to provide behavioural opportunities for revealing underlying thinking and behavioural patterns. Initiative based team building events have a valuable function in seeing how we behave as individuals and as a team. A problem is given to a team to solve or a mission is set for them to achieve as a team. Each of the team members may have different ways of solving the same problem. Allowing team members to understand why others make certain decisions will enable the team members to understand better why others make such decisions in the workplace. The team building process is crucial, it is not the end … it is the means. If, for example, during a raft building activity, your raft sinks it does not show that you are unable to work as a team. Whether or not the raft sinks is unimportant. What is important in any team building activity is how team members make the decisions and interacted with their colleagues.

Objective based Team Building in Leeds

Team building events invariably, but not necessarily, take people away from the office and put them in an unfamiliar situation, possibly in a Leeds hotel or other venue. It is where people are most likely to be dressed informally and therefore, behave differently. At these occasions, positions in the corporate hierarchy are often forgotten and the true self appears as people tend to lower their guard and behave differently. People do not simply act differently, they say things differently too. The way that we act and the way that we behave outside of the formal work setting is often our more true self. Team building experiences should help to show others our true ‘human’ nature. Knowing each others true attitude and behaviour will often change our perceptions of our fellow workers.

Team building events in Leeds will therefore be more successful when there is a structured programme which will allow specific objectives to be met. Team activities that create the opportunity to reveal the way we think, make decisions and react will create better and further understanding of work colleagues. Finally, a team building event that allows each others attitudes and behaviour to surface will result in the creation of better relationships in the office. However, managers must always be aware that team building does not just happen in a one or two day event, it has to happen in the workplace every day and it takes time. To allow team building to work managers must promote interaction in the workplace among colleagues so that they learn how each member thinks and works. This might require several different training methods including class room training, role playing and profiling tests. Good managers will need to contribute to the process rather than being hopeful for the best results from one or two team building events. Based on the understanding of the principles of team building above, it is hoped that managers will be able to make a better decision when organising future team building events.

For help and advise on organising a structured Team Building Event in Leeds contact KDM.