YOUR success as a leader depends in not inconsiderable days on your team members. It starts with hiring people with the best set of skills to execute your vision, and then developing them to get to the next level of their career. You know that you are a good leader if you have produced other leaders in your organization by mentoring and giving them opportunities and challenges to make their potential a reality.
One of the most overlooked aspects of developing people and a team is providing engaging activities that go beyond the corporate walls—literally. I am talking about team-building activities which allow people to let their hair down and just enjoy the company of their peers. A company-sponsored team-building activity signals to employees that the organization is willing to spend time and effort to the holistic development of employees and teams. If a company does not have this, you can still create opportunities for team building through shared interests or just setting a common time to just be together and getting to know each other better. This is especially important when there are new members in the team, or when the organization is undergoing major changes which could affect the team later on.
There are numerous benefits of a team-building activity. One of the most obvious is the improved communication among team members. We recently had our team building and I can immediately see the change in work dynamics in my team. It now seems easier for them to ask help from other team members, and offer help to the same. The games in our team building helped them break down barriers to communicating freely with others because they were doing something fun for a common goal. That shared experience helped them see others as trustworthy.
This is another benefit of team-building activities—it builds trust among the team members. While team-building activities need to have an agenda or objective which benefits the organization, it does not mean it has to be direct in its application. Team-building activities that successfully meet their objectives are those which the team enjoys doing but are not directly related to their work. One of the games we played was a charade relay where, instead of a person saying the message from one person to the next, they had to act it out. This activity was so much fun because people had to come up with creative ways of acting out the message, but it also helped them understand how the other person can figure out the message by understanding how the other person thinks. This helped them understand that people may not always get what you mean but with persistence and looking for other ways to make them understand, they will eventually get it. But they have to try and try until the other person understands.
Team-building activities also encourage creativity and fun in the workplace. Looking back at the charade relay game, team-building activities help team members in looking for other ways to make it work. Because of the increased trust with one another, team members are also more open to risks and experimentation because they know their team will support them. Taking this to the organization, this will spur more innovations and process improvement initiatives because they can rely on their colleagues to support them in their initiatives. It helps them think beyond what they are familiar with and look at how things can be better so the other person can do what they need to do.
The shared experiences in a team-building activity also help foster collaboration and smoother work dynamics. By asking team members to do a game or a fun activity, they invariably deal with everyone regardless of role, position, or expertise, and bring whatever they can to win. This, in turn, helps them see everyone as having something to contribute toward the goal. This would not have been the same if team members just sat down and I presented them with a new project and asked for their opinion on how we should go about it. A team-building activity helps them see their colleagues having individual strengths and personalities, and working with them to achieve a common goal. This also helps team members adjust accordingly to another’s opportunities for improvement.
You will also discover during these team-building activities the members who have the potential to become future leaders. There are those who take the initiative to rally people to the activity and, inadvertently, lead the group. This could be a good indicator of their leadership capability. They don’t realize it but the activities also bring out their inclinations for group work—whether they become active participants or silent supporters. This is a good opportunity for you to observe how people react to each other and find ways of minimizing friction because of personality differences.
All of these benefits boil down to one thing: increased productivity. When there is better communication, increased trust, boosted morale and enhanced creativity, the whole team benefits and work gets done better and faster. While they may involve cost and the direct financial benefits may be vague, the benefits to your team’s productivity are obvious.
Your team will help you succeed and it is up to you to give them opportunities to work seamlessly with one another to get the job done. Team building does not always have to be expensive, but it needs to be purposive and enjoyable so your team can learn while having fun because, in the end, you can only go so far as your team does. n