5 Benefits Of Team Building After Covid 19

I’ve always been a big fan of corporate Team Building events.  I love the camaraderie that is built, I love the “Ah-ha” moments that are collectively gained, and most of all, I enjoy seeing teams walk away with a renewed commitment to success, realizing, “We can do this!”

Anyone can work IN their organization, but great leaders take the time to work ON their organization.  In a Post-Covid world, when teams are coming together to reopen, I believe there is a golden opportunity that many teams will miss if they don’t take the time.  Team building will give your team the time to reflect and consider what we’ve learned through the shutdown and how to move forward together when you start things back up.

A Team Building experience doesn’t have to be “all fun and games.” A trained facilitator can help you and your team process your next steps as a company.  Whether you use a simple SWOT analysis or other facilitated experiences, off-site team building days can help your team feel confident in the new “Post Covid” world.

 

2. Reestablish Trust. Your team has heard that phrase, “In these uncertain times” a thousand times by now.  Patrick Lencioni asserts in his classic book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team that “Trust is the building block of every good thing your organization will achieve.  A team of highly trained, motivated professionals who don’t trust one another is like a formula one race care with a flat tire. ”

The only way to build trust is to spend time together.  A Team Building retreat allows your team to be more than a group of departments or department heads, they become human.  When your team trusts they will be more willing to work together, let go of control, and even forgive and move on.

 

3. Create a Common Language. When you went to Sunday school as a kid the answers were always, “Jesus,”  “Read your Bible,” and “Pray.”  The more we facilitate Team Building experiences for different organizations, the answer seems to always be, “communication.”  Everyone agrees that communication is always in need of improvement.  But what they really mean is that everyone, BUT them, needs to work on communicating.  Creating a common language helps people communicate effectively and efficiently. 

Several years ago during an inner-city immersion experience, our group was in serious conflict over whether or not we should eat a watermelon now or save it for later.  I can’t tell you (mostly because I’m ashamed) how many hours we scabbled over the watermelon dilemma.  Our leader, a trained facilitator, helped us process the issue, truly listen to each other, and to help us see the bigger issues keeping us from making a decision.  After that day any time we as a group would slip into bad habits of miscommunication someone would say the word, “watermelon,” and it would cause us all to stop and remember what we learned from that experience.  As a result, we were able to self-correct and move to productivity rather than spinning our wheels. Team Building experiences help your team create a common language that communicates far more effectively with far fewer words.  By the way, we ate the watermelon that night.

 

4. Identifying Your Win.  A well planned team-building experience can help your team identify what is truly important. What does a win look like for your organization? It may sound crazy but without some clarification, teams have multiple wins that they are individually striving for. Consequently, people feel like they are losing and alone in their pursuit of a win at work.

Your team members come to work every day with full slates rather than blank slates.  Each employee comes to work with thoughts on what they or the team can do better, interpersonal issues from home and the workplace, fears, doubts, hopes, and aspirations.  They also come armed with a host of ideas of what a successful day, week, month, and year looks like.  Teams that don’t take the time to clarify their collective win spend a huge amount of resources on things that don’t make an impact on your mission fulfillment – which usually means a negative impact on the bottom line.

Taking the time to clarify your teams win, frees people up from pursuing superfluous self-identified goals and brings focus to as a team as to what is truly important.  Teams with clear wins, work better together, utilizing each team member’s strengths and collective wisdom, ultimately making the work more successful and fun.  Everyone likes to win!

5. Building Positive Memories. Most people spend 40+ hours a week at work, so wouldn’t it be great if people enjoyed their time?  Team Building days provide laughter, camaraderie, and positive memories for your team but more importantly with your team.  Even though you may all work at the same organization it doesn’t mean that you work with each other, or even see each other every day.  These types of experiences tend to bring people together, strengthen friendships, and help people gain an appreciation for each other.  The memories made through Team Building experience are the memories shared at someone’s retirement party.  They are more powerful than just another day at work, they become the stories we tell for years to come. 

Carolina Creek specializes in designing Team Building experiences made for your organization.  Whether your goals are to build unity, improving communication, goal setting, or something more specific we will work with you to deliver a positive experience for your team.