Not officially autumn yet, but as I walked through the streets of lower Manhatten on a cool evening last week I wished I’d had a fall jacket. Fall has always been a time of reflection for me and this year the reflection has been particularly strong as I leave my daughter to begin her first year of college in New York City. Of course the family text messages have been flying, it’ so easy to stay in touch these days. In fact, it’s so easy to stay in touch through our virtual world of emails, texts, facebook and twitter that we can quickly forget the irreplaceable value of person to person, face to face contact. I may be biased because team building events take place when people get together. But I continue to experience the irreplaceable value: the insights, bonding, learning and productivity that happens when teams get together to share common experience, challenge and success. It is truly empowering.
Healthways
We wrote a song with the Healthways marketing team at their annual department-wide meeting. This group liked to compete, so after writing a song chorus together we broke into teams, with fierce competition to craft the best song verses.
After their independent work, we rejoined as a large group and put the elements of the song together. One team rapped a verse to drums, their visual presentation being as important as their message. After all, this was a marketing group and the song reflected their passion for presentation!
Sunday School
I had the wonderful opportunity to work with a group of Sunday school teachers as they got to know each other better and prepare for the upcoming year. We all laughed as they wrote about the common challenges they face, most notably trying to get the kids to show up for Sunday school on days when the
Tennessee Titans play home games.
Here’s some of the lyric:
So tell your folks you want to stay
When football games get in the way
A performance for the entire congregation helped everyone acknowledge the issues of Sunday school attendance in a light, humorous, approachable manner. Isn’t that team building at it’s best!
I hope you’ll learn more about team building through the art of songwriting, creativity, productivity and living with enthusiasm. Stay in touch and let us help you deliver the programs you need.