Winning teamwork is fundamental to the success of any organization.  Winning teamwork requires trust, openness, communication, and respect among the members of the team. The purpose of a team building event is to deepen the bonds within the team and increase this trust, openness, communication, and respect.

Some recommendations on how to have a successful team building event:

Do It Regularly … Do It Rarely:  Determine the appropriate interval for team building events – every six months, once a year, once every two years.  The appropriate interval is not too long that the team grows apart and not too short that the event becomes yet another series of meetings.

Get Away from the Office: It is crucial to get everyone out of the normal business element and interact as people in a different environment.  The informal discussions when the team is out of the office at dinner or doing an activity are usually the most valuable part of the team building event.

Keep It Modest… Keep It Short… Keep It Fun: As for outside the office activities, dinners are the easiest to plan.  Going to a sporting event, especially if the budget allows you to get a suite, is great fun if everyone likes sports.  I prefer something that is more active: go kart racing, canoeing, hiking, off road riding, a treasure hunt.  It is best if the activity part is kept short (at most 3 – 4 hours), so those who don’t like it can suffer through.  It is best if the whole team building event is also short – one or two nights at most.

Get Some Work Done: Building on the fun activity, there should be some meetings and some work accomplished.  The purpose of this part of the team building event is to enhance relationships in a business setting with everyone more relaxed from the activity.

Boy Girl Seating: During the events, the dinners, and the meetings, assign positions or seats to allow for interaction between people who do not always interact.  In this way, people will be forced to interact outside their normal work group.

Show and Tell: In encouraging sharing of ideas and lessons learned, have a Show and Tell session where each person or group brags about some progress or advance that they have made.  Framing this session as a Show and Tell with the objective of both learning and reminding helps reduce any clash of egos and gets everyone thinking about what they can share to improve the team and the business.

Conclusion

As regular readers of my blogs know, I encourage fewer and shorter meetings.  However, rare, regular, and well thought out team building events are vital in building a winning team and a successful business.