Team Building – A necessity or waste of time
Despite the misconception that team building is lame and barely seen as relevant, did you know that team building is the most important investments you can make for your team? It builds trust, mitigates conflict, encourages communication, and increases collaboration. Effective team building means more engaged employees, which is good for company culture and boosting the bottom line. In this article, I will be talking about the importance of team building and sharing some valuable tips on how to plan effective team building activities. Why Team Building? 1. Networking and socializing Socializing and getting to know your team in the workplace is one of the best ways to increase productivity in the office. Team building boosts morale and also allows for team members to work better at solving everyday workplace issues. 2. Teamwork and boosting overall performance Employees tend to understand each other better after completing a team-building activity. It becomes easier to identify each other’s strengths, weaknesses, and interests. This collaborative spirit and team effort helps everyone work even better together on future projects vital to a company’s progress. 3. Fostering of innovation and creativity Successful team building events not only bring people closer together, but they also contribute to a more successful and creative workplace. Games and competitive exercises become more challenging as people tend to have a larger imagination when they are around people they are comfortable with. 4. Communication To no surprise, communication and working better together is the top reason why people choose team bonding. Everybody desires a friendly work environment, where people are comfortable and happy to talk to and collaborate with anyone. One of the results of team bonding is that the activities actually work to improve communication. Are you looking to improve your team’s communication skills, collaborativeness and performance? Why don’t you try these tips when planning your next team building soiree: Identify the goal of this event This includes identifying what you want the focus to be on. It is best to plan an entire team-building session around key objectives. For example, if you want to foster better communication among group members, then your activities should include initiatives that call for various combinations of players taking a leadership role in giving directions, commands, or ideas in both verbal and non-verbal mediums. Replace the usual team dinner with something new Choosing something unique and slightly outside of people’s comfort zones can encourage them to come together in new ways. Take your team paintballing or maybe to a boxing ring to let off some steam. A little physically challenging activity might be all you need to get people to destress. Quit looking at it as a favor but as an investment This event isn’t fluff. You don’t have to break the bank for something fancy or to go on expensive trips or experiences, but don’t skimp either. Be willing to make a real investment. Bad experiences stick longer than beautiful memories. Keep it up Most team-building events fall flat because it’s a one-time activity that is done and then forgotten. It’s key to find ways to keep organizing these events. The challenge is creating opportunities for people to connect and interact in meaningful ways, outside of regular meetings or presentations. One way we do this is to have a monthly team hurdle. At this event, team members can celebrate achievements and show appreciation to their co-workers. Assessment/ Evaluation After team bonding exercises, you must evaluate and measure impact. For you to measure a team member’s ability to collaborate with other departments on projects, I would recommend that this be evaluated or assessed during performance appraisal. This can be done in the form of a questionnaire, survey or during 1-on-1s with other team members. This is the easiest way to track improvement when it involves showing team effort. How do you know you’ve gotten team building right? If there was laughter, a sense of excitement and accomplishment, and maybe a few Instagram moments, you’re definitely on the right track! A little adventure can unlock many levels of creativity.
7 Ways to Inspire your Team this Year
As a Boss Lady, I happen to have a lot of mentees and team members look up to me. And by all means, I want to inspire my team and bring out the best in them. For one, I want to inspire them to keep putting out great work, and secondly, I want to remember that they are not tools for work but human beings. I have to be sensitive to them. In my Boss Lady life, I have taken a few notes that I will like to share with other Boss Ladies to help them serve their team better. Here are seven ways to inspire your team this year. ?? Don’t Talk Down On Your Team So, remember we are raising leaders – people who can stand tall with us. The word superior mustn’t necessarily be taken literally in a way that it makes those who work with us feel the exact opposite of that word. You always want to make your team feel respected as humans with differences. Don’t display any character that puts down people. For example; Don’t make a joke about a team member’s religion. Everything is about inspiring confidence. Language tops it. Always be polite even when you are giving criticism. Ever heard of commend and recommend? (Ask a Toastmaster ?). Christine Porath in her TEDx presentation on incivility in the workplace says, “How you show up and treat people means everything. Either you lift people up by respecting them, making them feel valued, appreciated, and heard or you hold people down by making them feel small, insulted, disregarded or excluded. And who you choose to mean everything”. Show That You Want Them To Succeed I know we say professionally, “don’t refer to yourselves in the workplace as a family” but to get people to grow an organization with you. You have to be all about the people who are all about your work. The CEO of House of Tara – Tara Durotoye said she learned very early as an entrepreneur, that for the people who leave their homes every day to come to a workplace there has to be more. She learned to stop referring to the company as ‘my company’ but ‘our company’. You have to make people see a greater reason for coming to work. Make them buy into the vision, and show them that you care about their personal affairs. Ever heard of Linkedin’s Tour of Duty? Where employees are moved up the ranks periodically depending on their career goals. That’s a way to identify with the needs of the team. Learn more in The Startup of You by Reid Hoffman. Sir Richard Branson says, “Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don’t want to”. Always find ways to add value to your team. Constantly Give Kudos For A Job Well Done I read the One-minute Manager many years ago, about effective people management. How the one-minute-manager was able to, in one minute dish out praises, and just in the same vein dish out reprimands, – an intentional leadership style. Team Leaders have to praise team members as a habit, not only reprimand them. It creates conditioning – that they are appreciated and valued, and reinforces learning. Many times I have realized I hold the keys to many team members happiness and self-esteem, and the worst thing to do is abuse that privilege. Many people are going through stuff or trying to believe in themselves. Realize they could use some hope from you. The toastmaster’s sandwich method of ‘Commend and Recommend’ is the recommended feedback standard, especially when there’s a reprimand coming. You have to always find the good in a team member’s work first, and commend it before reprimanding. Commend their good intentions, or make reference to their usual good works. There has to be something to commend. Then move unto how they can do better. Notice I said ‘how they can do better’ not necessarily focusing on what they did wrong. Remember they have to feel good about themselves at all times. Set High Standards For People Experience I worked with a friend last year and was so impressed by her high standard of people experience. It inspires loyalty, as even I look forward to working with her again and again. I like it that House of Tara refers to her HR Department as the People Experience Team because this aptly puts their job. In fact, I was so impressed by this that at a Managers’ Training on Empathy and Emotional Intelligence I used HOT as a case study. Now that we have established that incivility is a no-no! And that this whole article is about inspiring team members. We are well on our way to implementing a culture. How do you mark the workers’ special days? What are the benefits put in place? Do you show interest in their work process or just the end result? How do you react at a failed expectation? Do they feel anxiety or inspiration towards work? Do they feel treated better by other work teams/workplaces? Do you deliberately paint them in a bad light before people? It is when we can genuinely answer these questions as boss ladies, and take action to get our people to experience right, then we will be doing right by the people who work with us. Don’t Set Unreasonable Goals Ahan! So, there’s this impossibility fairy who told us doing the impossible means setting unreasonable goals. The truth is being Miranda Priestly is no longer cool. Of course, it turned Emily into a go-getter but wasn’t Miranda only trying to get Emily fired at first by driving her nuts with unbearable tasks? Oh! look at me talking to only those who have seen ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ While we want to keep team members challenged, there is a difference between being motivated and being anxious. You want people to go out of their way but within reason. Don’t push people. Don’t set