KEY POINTS:
If your team is looking down in the dumps, or you need to bring people from different offices together to help improve working relationships, then a team-building day may be the answer.
Rose Judd started organising these types of events in the 1990s after seeing how popular they
were in Britain a decade earlier.
"The whole concept of team building didn't arrive here until the 1990s," says Judd, who owns Teamtactix in Auckland and Palmerston North. "Most of our customers are corporate firms such as real estate, insurance companies and banks, rather than industrial-type organisations."
Judd says team-building events are all about breaking down barriers and are designed to get people working better together. They are particularly helpful in these days of remote working and part-time work, when many colleagues rarely get to work with each other face-to-face.
"Taking part in a team-building day is often the first time some clients have met each other because they may work at offices in different parts of the country. They might have only communicated by phone or email until they see each other at the start of their team-building day."
Darlene Westrupp, a part owner of accounting firm Morrison Creed in Palmerston North, says she doesn't think the merger of her firm with another company would have been as smooth without a team-building day.
"As the date of the merger got closer our staff were asking questions about their new colleagues and there was some trepidation as people in each firm wondered about the people they were going to work with.
"So we had to find a way of breaking the ice and getting everyone together. The team-building day worked wonderfully. Everyone discovered that we were all the same."
She says only a few of the people in either company had really met each other before they took part in the event and on the day teams were made up of members from both firms who competed against each other in fun competitions.
"We did archery, laser clay pigeon shooting and there were a few surprises when people who you didn't expect to do well at a particular event came out on top."
And two weeks later - when everyone arrived at the office for their first day at the newly merged firm, Westrupp said it was all very friendly.
"People would introduce themselves and talk about the team-building day and rib each other on their performance at archery or one of the other games."
Judd says she finds it interesting to watch groups that feature managers and their staff during team-building events.
"I watch to see who has the true leadership and who takes control of team events. You see strong people come forward who may normally just be in the background at work."
She says team-building events are designed to get strangers to work together and trust one another as some games lead to people being blindfolded and completing tasks based on verbal instructions from people they may have only known for an hour or two.
"What we have found is that it is not so much what people get out of the experience on the day, but rather what happens when they get back to their work environment," says Judd.
She says it is important that managers booking these events are clear on what they want to achieve. It could be improved communication, increased trust or better teamwork.
"Some companies have a team building event that is really just a bit of fun for the staff which is used as a reward. Other times they have specific goals such as bringing a team back together after a major change at work - such as redundancies, changes in structure or to boost staff morale."
Although she says the team development events include a lot of fun she says no one is forced to do anything that instructors wouldn't do themselves. But she does admit that some visiting team members do spit the dummy on rare occasions.
"Sometimes you get one person who will refuse to do something - perhaps during team development," says Judd. "We wouldn't force anyone to do anything, but the group will normally encourage that person to take part.
But Judd says her instructors get a buzz out of helping people do things they didn't think they could do.
"It can be a real confidence booster."
* Contact Steve Hart at www.stevehart.co.nz
