When potential clients ask me about the importance of team building, I usually answer with a few questions. What is the importance of corporate culture? Is your workforce engaged? Should you care?
Yes, you should care about culture and engagement. Members of high performing teams need to feel that their work is important, that their work contributes to a greater whole and that there’s company vision driving the day-to-day work. When employees believe their work has value – meaning – context, then they’re more likely to feel engaged and more closely connected as part of a team. Recognizing the importance of team building is integral as part of an overall effort to improve culture and engagement.
Highlight The Importance of Team Building
A once a year team building event won’t change your corporate culture for the long run. But it can be a great catalyst to jump starting a change initiative. Or it can be a great punctuation mark to end a change initiative on a high note. I recently led a team building event that was a large group conference energizer, coming at the end of a three day sales team meeting. This particular team had been absorbing a lot of information, dealing with change and trying to become reinvigorated for challenges ahead. As part of a initiative based around the them of transformation, management recognized the importance of supporting their themes with action. In this case, they wanted a team building activity that would model transformation – in other words, something that would inspire and re-frame.
Inspire and re-frame your culture
We led 250 people through a program that allowed everyone to feel like their ideas about team identity were valued. In a large group brainstorm, inspired by music, this team co-created a song that celebrates their unique value proposition. The event, in and of itself, was motivating and engaging so it provided the lift-off our client was looking for. It solidified through action, the words about team, engagement and mission, that this sales team had been hearing the past few days.