The Ultimate Guide to Team Building

Of course we’re going to say that paintball is a fantastic team building activity - because it truly is - but there are so many ways you can go about organising team building activities in Wellington. The main thing is that you do it!

If you manage a team, then team building ought to be fairly high on your list of priorities. 

What’s better: competition or collaboration?

Modern workplaces are moving away from a culture of competition and towards a culture of collaboration. This is because it has been found that teams who are able to work well together tend to outperform those that rely on individual performance. 

When you create competition among your team, they become rivals rather than coworkers. They trust one another less, and are more likely to engage in back-stabbing, in-fighting, and resource-hoarding. 

Ultimately, a high competition culture can lead to dissatisfaction with the job itself, and you’ll be at risk of losing some incredibly talented staff members. 

On the other side of the coin, when you create a culture of collaboration, you’re utilising the breadth of skill sets and talent you have in your staff. 

Leadership consultant and Forbes writer Shawn Kent Hayashi writes that: 

“Once collaboration is in place, people are much more trusting of each other, more willing to stretch themselves and more likely to create amazing results.”

You’re also nurturing them - when people are able to work together to achieve a common goal, everybody learns something and improves their performance for the next time. It’s win/win!

Of course, it’s possible to encourage healthy competition between staff members where they are working towards a common goal, but it’s important to be transparent about what you’re doing, and encourage them to share what they learn with one another once the competition driver is done. 

Be clear that the competition will ultimately benefit everyone - if it doesn’t, then don’t do it. Lastly, be adaptive. If the competition you set creates tension in the team, then it’s not worth continuing, at least not in the same way you have been. Either stop the competition, or change it to erase the cause of the tension.

Kent Hayashi says “ultimately, you want to create a workplace culture where people freely share information, opinions and perspectives. The best way to achieve that is through building trust and emphasizing collaboration, not competition.”

How collaboration impacts workplace productivity

The results are in - people prefer a positive, collaborative work culture over other workplace perks. If you knew you could improve the day to day lives of your staff, why wouldn’t you? The happier people are, the more effective and productive they are in turn. 

A 2012 study by Fierce found that a whopping 99.1% of employees prefer a workplace in which people identify and discuss issues truthfully and effectively. The same study also found that 86% of those surveyed cite lack of collaboration or ineffective communication for workplace failures. 

So if a lack of communication could kill your business, wouldn’t it make sense to encourage a culture of teamwork and collaboration?

How team building activities support a healthy work culture

We know a collaborative environment makes for happier staff, and happier staff makes for higher productivity and a smooth-running business operation.

But what are the ways that you can encourage this kind of environment in the workplace? Well, team building activities would be a very smart investment. 

The reason these work so well is because they are all about your biggest asset: your employees. Team building days are an opportunity for them to step away from their jobs and your expectations on them, and bond with their coworkers and with management on a level playing field.  

You can learn a lot about a person and the way they interact with others during the course of a team-building event. You might find that somebody has a certain skill or trait that you hadn’t noticed before, that could be harnessed in a way that would improve their workday as well as your business. There’s nothing worse than under-utilising your biggest asset! 

The biggest benefits of team building activities

The thing is, team building gets a bit of a bad name in general conversation. It feels cringey, and conjures images of sitting in a stuffy meeting room reluctantly engaging in an awkward conversation. It doesn’t have to be this way! 

Let’s reverse-engineer the idea of team building and have a look at what you stand to gain by investing in your team:

More Collaboration

Well, this is what we’ve been going on about! You’ll bring your employees closer together and give them a scenario to practice collaboration outside of the workplace. This beats an awkward icebreaker any day, and the things they learn during a team building day will usually translate well once they’re back in the work environment. 

Increased Productivity

The more valued your employees feel, the more productive they’re going to be. But there’s more to it than this. When we talk about “productivity” it’s always a nice buzzword, but what does it really mean? How much they can get done in a day? That’s part of it, but it’s also about utilising the right skill sets in the right places to have a better outcome for the business. When people are good at what they’re doing, get a bit of a daily challenge, and feel as though they are contributing something valuable, they’re happier and they’ll get more done. 

Extra Motivation

A team building event will definitely kick off some momentum to move your employees forward in their work endeavours. Of course, the promise of an exciting group activity is a good motivator in itself, but employees will also respond to having time that would otherwise be allocated to work, to do something fun.  

Drive Up Creativity

Activities outside of the workplace tend to stimulate parts of the brain not typically associated with the workplace environment - or even exactly on the tasks at hand. However, getting out of that environment can be key to engaging creative energy and lateral thinking, which can change the way workers approach otherwise everyday or tasks that seem to be uninteresting. Ask yourself, do you want a workplace full of zombies on auto-pilot, or do you want forward-thinking problem solvers?

Positive Reinforcement

Team building activities are both a reward, and a motivator, for great work. Taking your team out to do something fun reinforces the appreciation you have for them and everything they do, and lets them know that you recognise the hard work they’re putting in.

Better Communication

It should go without saying that if you put your employees into a competitive situation in which they need to communicate in order to get results, you can bet they will communicate. This translates back into the workplace too - the skills they develop even in just one team-building session will have a lasting impact over time. 

Final Words: You don’t even have to call it team building

If you’ve been reading this and having notions about a meeting room-style team building day featuring worksheets and awkward ice-breakers, get rid of that idea right now. Not only does nobody really want to do it, those kinds of forced interactions just aren’t much fun. If you instead create a situation in which conversation and bonding can occur more organically, everyone is going to have a better time. 

So go out and do something fun. Forget after work drinks - everyone does that. Sure, it can result in bonding, but not everybody drinks or will view this as a reward. 

Organise a genuine activity that everyone can do. Make sure it involves getting your team out of their comfort zones in a fun and friendly, but challenging way, and you’ll reap the rewards in almost every aspect of their performance.