Teams are the building blocks of modern-day organizations. They are central to organizational psychology, but according to The Economist, are often “hampered by problems of coordination and motivation”. Experts at Harvard University say that teams work best when members have a common culture.
This explains why so many firms today invest in team-building exercises, work outings and awaydays. “You certainly get to know people better,” says Ben. “I must say it makes us all far closer as a team.” Ben, 22, works for a specialist engineering consultancy. His firm organizes an awayday each year for team building, as well as a company weekend abroad for all 18 members of staff.
According to the Daily Mirror, the average UK company spends €346 per employee each year on team-building activities. Considering the success of TV chefs and cooking programmes, it’s perhaps no surprise to find cooking activities growing in popularity as team-building exercises.
Clare Major, of Seasonedcookery school, near Birmingham, runs courses for awaydays and team building focused on working together to produce top meals. As she told the Daily Mirror, it’s the dining room that really brings people together, “to appreciate each other’s efforts from the day, feel a great sense of achievement and get to know one another better”.
But apart from gaining an appetite, what do firms actually hope to achieve from work outings or team-building exercises? The traditional aim, explains Steve Perkins of Chillisauce events management, is to build team spirit, camaraderie and recognition of each other’s skills and personalities.
Too often, however, activities are poorly planned, with no concrete goals beyond entertainment. “The solution,” Perkins told The Guardian, “is to look at what your team does on a day-to-day basis and how they function, then tailor an exercise around this.”
Ben’s firm uses its awayday as a structured form of team building. A morning spent on updates on company strategy, development and planning is followed by a relaxed lunch and an afternoon of team-building exercises. All of the activities are designed by “seniors” (middle- ranking staff) and this year included memory tests, a competition to build the tallest tower using just two pieces of paper plus sticky tape, and a game in which a tower constructed of random objects had to be reconstructed by teams using a series of “whispered” instructions along a chain of employees. Everybody joins in the exercises, which, Ben admits, tend to “consolidate how some people work well in teams and how others don’t”.
The weekend abroad is a more relaxed, informal affair — but, as Ben explains, it is a powerful tool for encouraging social interaction between team members and their partners. The company pays for flights and a Saturday evening meal and drinks. Last year, 15 of the team holidayed in Lisbon together. This year, 13 of them (plus partners) travelled to Vienna.
No one talks about work, says Ben, “although we don’t avoid it if it does come up. But we wouldn’t at any point in a conversation discuss what we would talk about in the office.”
Most people would probably prefer to holiday with family and friends. Still, as Steve Gaskin, director of Right Angle Events, told The Guardian, “Many people spend more time at work than they do with their families. It is therefore important to communicate with each other. Team building is an essential part of this.”
If you want to get the most out of your team-building activities, says employment expert Dr Stephen Choo, then focus on “PAY”. P is for “purpose” (set purposeful and appropriate goals); A is for “activities” (avoid embarrassing activities and tailor tasks to specific needs); and Y is for “yield” (return on investment, using a professional team builder and a proper debrief). Choo recommends gathering ideas from team members first and using a simple quantitative questionnaire, with a follow-up survey three to six months later.
And how about the activities to avoid? A group of US advertising and marketing managers presented some of their least successful experiences of team-building exercises on PrNewswire.com.
These included having a psychic come to the office to do readings; getting pedicures; trying indoor skydiving and surfing; receiving a massage from a colleague; and experiencing a one-week desert retreat.