I am still not sure why leaders of organizations and teams feel that competition and forcing employees into winner take all games is still considered TeamBuilding. Recently in an article I came across;
Studies show that the practice of team building
activities is a good one, helping to foster camaraderie and strengthen
relationships between coworkers. However, any purported team building
activity that makes some workers feel uncomfortable and ridiculed isn’t a
successful team building effort...SF Workplace Examiner
I have written about this before here are some other posts;
Team Building Torture
Corporate Team Building Failure
Corporate Team Building Recreation vs. Team Development
To name a few.
How can we stop this?
1) when hiring a team building company be honest and up front about what your needs are
2) meet and discuss do you want team improvement and team building or do you want a recreation program.
3) start calling lasertron, grape stomping, flag football, go kart racing, etc... recreation.
4) Team Building is led by facilitators who are experienced and knowledgeable about Workforce Development, Organizational Development, Instructional Design, and are able to Build your Team.
5) team building comes from the processing and facilitation of the experience
6) the team building activities are only vehicles to deliver the learning program
What is missing?
How can we separate Team Building from Recreation?
-Michael Cardus is the founder of Create-Learning-Team Building, an experiential based training and development consulting organization, as well as a blogger for TeamBuilding NY. Mike specializes in team development and leadership development consulting and training, creating team-building programs that retain talented staff members, increase production and effectiveness of your team. He lives in Buffalo, NY, and travels to you to serve your team-building and leadership training needs, wherever and whenever fits your schedule.
