Share ideas at a team building workshop...

Attend a team building workshop so that you can hold your own

All too often in this world a group of individuals are thrown together into a room or onto a sports field and told to complete a task with ease and efficiency.

This type of behavior has been done for decades in corporate business and it is time that it stops.

The larger and more successful companies have started to take notice of the flaws in this practice and are starting more and more to employ team building ideas and programs, and often a team building workshop, to turn their rag tag group of people into cohesive and interdependent members of a true team.

Meaning of a team

It is possible that the bad habits come about because the powers that be who document the meanings of words create definitions that are simplistic and technically wrong in our opinion. One very popular source for words and definitions calls a team a group of people organized for a particular purpose. That is almost right however a team is always a group but the inverse is not always correct. Not all groups are teams. The first time a company attends a team building workshop is usually the first time they learn this concept. If you have a group that never gels as a team and stays an assortment of individuals they will never truly be able to depend on one another to complete their part of the task while they complete their part. A team is only as strong as its weakest member and since the completion of a task requires that even the weakest member completes their piece of the project, one person can make the whole fail.

Granted, the whole point of a team is to support one another and make up for where some member falls short this should be an exception to the norm and not the normal occurrence. So what in the world do people do at a team building workshop anyway? Well there are a number of types of seminars and workshops available for companies and teams great and small. Workshops that teach team building are put on by companies that specialize in the formation of team relationships, interpersonal relationships and are familiar with business as a whole. What that means for you is that when you attend a workshop put on by one of these companies you will be dealing with professionals that are aware of the challenges that you face in your day to day business and have the expertise and the knowledge to pull you out of any slump and get you rolling in the right direction.

Parts of a workshop

One of the most fun parts of any team building workshop is the team building games. There are tons of team building ideas and games being played all around the world but some of them stand out to us and we would like to share them with you. One of the most effective and entertaining games that one can play to help build trust and communication amongst a teams’ members is a blindfolded search for items. There are a bunch of names that are coined for this game but without referencing any in particular we will stick with the vague title. I have actually played this game at multiple team building workshops and all had different titles but the same concept. The game involves tow people one of which is blindfolded. The leader will place assorted items around the area, which can be indoors or outdoors, and the one that can see will direct the blindfolded one around to retrieve the objects. This team building game promotes clear and concise communication between parties and really forces the pair to depend on and trust in one another to complete the task. The majorities of the teams that try this succeed and speed up the retrieval as they go along. By the second time through they seem to really understand what the other is saying and thinking. This is a great team building game and should be used by everyone in need of a corporate team building exercise.

If you are a smaller companies or group and cannot afford to go to a full scale team building workshop then you can just conduct your own workshop on your own property. That is the great thing about team building, the major tools and props are the people themselves. The bulk of the team building games involve anywhere from no props to very simple ones that are around the office. The game we just spoke about can be conducted with fancy custom objects as some team building workshops use or things like staplers and folders off of your desk. You do not have to go to some outrageously expensive retreat to conduct your team workshop; you can conduct yours in the office, the hallway, and the grounds surrounding your building or for that matter the cafeteria after lunch.

It is interesting but the point of many of the team building workshops is to teach groups to think abstractly and brainstorm. I can think of no better team building exercise than developing your own team building exercises and ultimately your own programs. You will find that other sections of the company, if you are a large organization, will ask you to conduct a team building workshop for them, wouldn’t that be a hoot?

Get involved

Team building is about communication and understanding. Get out there and do it and see what it can do for you and your bottom line.

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