I love writing posts for our news category because I get to share my enthusiasm when I’m fresh off a program. Last week’s New York Team Building event for Unilever IT Business Partners was fun. Additionally, it was productive. It was a positive surprise for everyone who took part. We braved a fierce snow storm and re-arranged flights, allowing flexibility to make sure we didn’t leave New York until we’d written some team building songs!
New York Team Building Goals
- Fun – Fun is not frivolous. Quite to the contrary, fun has value. Picture yourself having fun…in that picture, are you bored? Fun and boredom are antithetical. When we establish fun as a baseline we’re guaranteeing engagement (opposite of boredom).
- Openness – It’s not easy to be open in your day to day work environment. When we work with groups to help them create their story through song, open conversation evolves naturally. Music provides an emotional blanket. Sort of like the blanket at your picnic, it’s a foundation that sets the stage. In this case the foundation is open conversation – with humor and without judgement.
- Feeling Good About Ourselves – Every individual, every department and every organization has a unique and authentic story that describes who they are and what they do. When we cut through the noise of day to day distraction, we uncover that most people, most departments and most organizations are proud of the work they do. This is their story. Put this narrative to music and the results feel pretty good.
Fun, open, feeling good about the work we do!
Team Building Take-Aways
- Your Songs! The songs we created with this New York team building group are powerful organizational artifacts that remind everyone of who they are. We remember the lyrics to so many songs that make up the sound track of our personal lives. It’s also important to have memorable songs that make up the sound track of our business lives.
- Communication – Share ideas, mold those ideas into lyric, wrap the lyric in a melody, then perform and record your creative work. This process allows groups to communicate in an honest and non-judgmental way. The power of this group communication carries over beyond the team building event and into your team culture. This improves your ability to share ideas, innovate and problem solve.