When someone mentions teambuilding, do you cringe? If your boss told you the team was going to complete a teambuilding exercise, would you think you were filming an episode of The Office?
Teambuilding has proponents and opponents. I’ve taken part in many exercises, and at one point in my career, I was the facilitator who subjected teams to this form of torture.
I actually don’t believe it is a form of torture, but I’ve also seen a lot of money wasted on fruitless teambuilding activities. There have been times in my career when I thought it was a form of torture, but there have been significant emotional and bonding experiences that have come from them.
In my recent research on teambuilding, I haven’t found anything that goes against my basic belief. This belief is that teambuilding can be very effective, but if it’s not done with intent, it can actually be destructive to the team.
I’ve taken part in many different forms of teambuilding. Two of the more notable ones included a three-day visit to a dude ranch in the Rockies in Colorado and an extensive ropes course in the desert of Arizona. These two were rather memorable to me because they were a disaster.
The dude ranch event turned into a three-day boss-bashing event. Fortunately, I was not the boss (just another one of the bashers). A lot of feedback was given and improvements suggested. Unfortunately, nothing changed afterwards. The boss was traumatized by the event. Then, when he returned home, he found that his wife had left him, taken half the furniture, and filed for divorce. He didn’t change his ways and none of the improvements were implemented.
The ropes course did nothing but advertise to a broad group of my peers that I have an intense fear of heights. This session was also not impactful because the group of people rarely interacted with each other. It’s hard to build a team where there isn’t one.
I’ve facilitated and participated in many teambuilding activities that proved to be very successful. I like focused teambuilding. As a leader of a team, I firmly believe in understanding each team member’s motivations (see my Personal Leadership Model post here https://mrhensonllc.com/my-personal-leadership-model/).
For every team I’ve led, I’ve tried to integrate teambuilding into our routine activities. I’ve found that when team members know more about each other, they understand more about the things that drive an individual to work.
During one of my roles at Chevron, I managed teams in ten different locations in Canada, the USA, and Mexico. I recall having 12-15 direct reports. We met periodically. Our mission was to supply products in the global marketplace. These products were manufactured in nine different plants. When I took over this role, these nine different plants viewed each other as their primary competition. I spent significant time changing this mindset. I wanted them to beat our true competition, not each other. As part of this, I needed to build a cohesive team with a single vision. (I plan on writing a separate post on the power of a simple, compelling vision. Stay tuned!)
At every in-person team meeting, we devoted some time to a teambuilding activity. The team member who was hosting the meeting got to pick and schedule the activity. We had a diverse set of activities, and really got to know each other well.
Early in 2006, I called a meeting in New Orleans and held the meeting at one of a key suppliers’ facility. This plant, along with the surrounding community, had been hard hit by Hurricane Katrina in August of 2005. Our team meeting was held six months after Katrina. Since I called the meeting, I decided and scheduled the activity. I contacted friends at Chevron’s upstream Public Affairs team and asked if there were any community service efforts still underway. They recommended a local group that was repairing musician’s homes so they could return to New Orleans. I was told after six months it would probably be “light clean-up.” I set the date and committed my team.
When we met the local coordinator at the musician’s residence south of Chalmette (a suburb of New Orleans), we found out we would help a local musician return to his home. Turns out, he hadn’t opened the door since Katrina. The house had been in the area with a lot of flooding. The water filled the entire one-story residence. The musician was rescued from his roof.
Instead of “light clean-up,” my team spent almost five hours gutting the home down to the studs. My team was fierce and efficient. At the end of the day, we were all whipped (and smelled very bad). I was proud of the team. One of my team had purchased printed t-shirts for us. Unfortunately, I believe most of us trashed them after, as we didn’t think they could be cleaned!
Ten years later, I ran into my key supplier contact in Singapore (who I had invited along with us). He shared with me and other colleagues that this event was the single best teambuilding he had ever participated in. I was humbled.
What did I learn from this experience? There were three key things:
- Vet the activity properly. I trusted my Public Affairs colleagues and didn’t fully vet the host organization. I should have used Ronald Reagan’s “trust but verify” creed. I would have fully prepared myself and my team better.
- Teambuilding that gives to others brings a different perspective to your team. We had a very productive meeting afterwards. The team was easily able to rally around each other in order to achieve our common goals.
- Teambuilding is an investment, not an expense. I still have good relations with many members of that team. I was humbled by the remark from the key supplier ten years later. The cost was minimal (t-shirts, transportation, and clothes). I told the team that if they wanted to dispose of the clothes they wore that day, I would reimburse them. The cost was minimal, compared to the improvement in our team’s cooperation and support.
Have you had good experiences with teambuilding? What activity is most memorable to you and why? Please share your thoughts and comments.