Cracking the Code: Unveiling the Ingredients for High-Performance Team Building Success
- Pete Wallis
- Feb 2, 2024
- 2 min read
One Friday evening, when we were travelling back from a successful Strengths Trail programme in North Wales, tired but happy, we made the most of the now familiar journey time by reflecting on what we had created with our Strengths Trail. We had been with a fantastic group for 2 days, exploring on and under the Welsh mountains. The team achieved great things, both personally, and as a group. It honestly is a beautiful thing to witness, and to be a part of.
There was literal beauty in the awe-inspiring scenery, which definitely played its part, but the long drive home had us reflecting on what makes our team build different, and got us thinking 'how can we share this with others to help them create events that drive the right outcomes for their teams?'
“what is the outcome you are looking for/have been tasked with?”
And the first question this poses is: “what is the outcome you are looking for/have been tasked with?” Always think about your why first. Is it just a bit of fun, or is there a deeper need to forge connections (let’s face it, in 2024 distributed/remote teams need to come together more than ever before!) and bind your team as a high-performing unit? If it is the latter, we hear you, and we have sussed out some key ingredients…
A quick google of team building solutions brings up a wealth of options (or a minefield of, depending on your view!)… it can be overwhelming, expensive and ineffective. Many events divide the audience in a bid to be ‘different’, alienate certain people and groups, or are tired and cliched, delivering very little impact, perhaps being, at best, forgettable, at worst, exacerbating the very issues they promise to solve. It is no wonder that the chosen option in many cases is a quick trip to a local eatery, a bar, or the go-kart track – simple, cheap, fun. But how much lasting impact do these events have? Do they meet the brief at all?
'Oftentimes, the chosen option is a quick trip to a local eatery, a bar – simple, cheap, fun. But how much lasting impact do these events actually have? What difference do they make?'
From our many combined years of Military, L&D and Managerial experience, we have witnessed MANY ‘team builds’, and we now know which building blocks really help you get to the ‘Team Build’ version – the one that actually makes a difference! (And delivers a return on investment.) If you want to provide entertainment AND lasting value, here are our 3 top tips which summarise our approach to team building:
1. Create shared experiences: Triumphs and tribulations, plus a common goal
The strongest teams experience something together. Something that unifies them. A common event they can all talk about moving forward, to reflect on fondly for years to come. (Anyone else worried at this point that some people never see their teams in person any more?!)
Your average team build can do this – everyone remembers that time where the team leader from accounts stacked his go-kart into the tyres on the first lap despite telling everyone for weeks he would win, right?! The winners get remembered for being good, maybe the losers for, well, losing.
But very often these types of events are pitching individuals against each other and, ultimately, it doesn’t really matter whether the team win or lose (apart from for the sake of office banter!).How about, instead, you create a situation where the team have to all come together in order to succeed? How much more conducive is that to effective teamwork and collaboration back in the workplace? In the best team-building activities, teams not only celebrate successes together, but also navigate shared failures together. These shared triumphs and tribulations form the foundation of a strong team bond, fostering a sense of camaraderie that extends far beyond the event itself, and which also provides shared learnings – what works and does not work, and how does this translate into the work we do?
Furthermore, it is great if you can create a sense of repercussion related to how well the team performs. If you think about it, some of the highest performing teams you can imagine do so because there is so much at stake – A&E teams, firefighters, the military to name but a few examples. (However, how many team builds/training sessions have you been on where it doesn’t really matter how you do? And can you even recall then who did well and how?! And don't get us started on the 'coasters'!) If you make the team building experience one where performance DOES matter, your team will experience high performance and understand the risks of lower performance. Once this has been experienced and understood, it can be replicated.
On our programme, delegates pull together in a scenario-based adventure to uncover a long-lost legend – the story is immersive, believable and memorable. But there are repercussions, for example, performance is the difference between army rations and a private chef (I know which I would pick!).
Benefits of a shared experience, common goal and repercussions:
Deeper Connection: Shared experiences create lasting memories that bind team members on a personal level.
Resilience: Facing challenges together builds resilience, preparing teams to tackle workplace obstacles with a united front.
Repercussions: Highlight the differences between low and high performance and help people feel the consequences so that the learning transfers into a more effective teamwork model in the workplace
2. Create opportunities to build professional respect
If we take our last idea of creating opportunities for both shared success and failure further, the team get to see each other at their best and worst. This learning is invaluable when it comes to effective collaboration. It is important that any team build gives people the opportunity to showcase what talents and skills they bring to a team so that others can see, experience and attach real value to them. This paves the way for what we have summarised as ‘professional respect’. A lack of this respect is what we believe can cause divides and inefficiencies within teams.
There is a pressure in the modern world to be great at everything, to have it all. But research shows that people and teams who can focus on and respect the talents of those around them will be more productive, more engaged, have a better quality of life and deliver exceptional results for the organisation. To play to each others’ Strengths and realise these benefits, we have to know and respect each others’ talents.
Teams where people are aware of their own and each others’ talents are better able to communicate, collaborate, delegate, challenge and hold each other to account, as well as help each other to lead fulfilling careers that play to their unique strengths. People are not, and should not be, islands. Collective power starts with knowledge and respect.
Conventional team building often neglects the diverse talents within a group, leading to missed opportunities and underutilised strengths. People can feel undervalued, incompetent, invisible even in comparison to their competitive peers – not the result we set out to achieve!
At True North we get to know our delegates before the adventure begins and we tailor the activities to highlight all of the different talents within the group. We also then push the challenge further by encouraging delegates to notice and feed back on the talents they see in others – there is no way they are then going back to work without a newfound professional respect for what each of their team brings, not to mention the trust and permission to each tap into those unique talents for success. How can you create opportunities, in a fun and supportive environment, for people to show off their best qualities? (Clue: money behind the bar is NOT the answer!)
Benefits of creating opportunities to build professional respect:
Individual empowerment: Recognising personal strengths and skills fosters a sense of empowerment and confidence and a willingness to be authentic
Optimised collaboration: Teams can strategically leverage each member's proven strengths for more effective collaboration.
Holistic team dynamics: A diverse range of (recognised) talents contributes to a well-rounded, high-performing team.
Innovative Problem-Solving: A team that respects and leverages individual strengths is better equipped to innovate and solve complex problems.
3. Build trust and psychological safety: The cornerstones of team success
Trust and psychological safety are the bedrock of any successful team. In an ideal world, you want to build the 4 levels of psychological safety during a team build: Inclusion, Learner, Contributor and Challenger safety (T Clark).
Your team can only reach true high performance when all 4 levels are met. With these 4 levels in place, teams have a high level of trust in each other, and can grow, bond, challenge each other and continually improve, becoming greater than the sum of their parts.
Team-building events often fall short in creating an environment where trust and psychological safety thrive. Some even result in decreased psychological safety and contribute to the very issues they are intended to resolve, which is not only demoralising, but costly. Overly competitive, divisive, surface-level and ill-thought through solutions should be avoided. Many of the solutions you find in your Google search results are well-intended, but lack the depth of thought required to avoid adding to issues team leaders, managers and business owners encounter. This depth of thought may feel like a lot of effort for a ‘social’, but there are great solutions out there to help you, and you can also create your own. A great team build can actually prevent common team issues and we very much encourage this proactive approach. So how?
Drawing from our collective experiences, our programme intentionally fosters an atmosphere where team members feel secure in expressing ideas, taking risks, and being vulnerable, cultivating a culture of trust that extends beyond the Trail. We do this by:
Individual coaching/Strengths discovery prior to the event – this builds personal trust in each person’s natural talents
Activities which give everyone an opportunity to lead and to follow – it is important that everyone experiences both roles
Activities which draw out natural talents help individuals to trust in what each other brings to the team – enforcing leader and follower roles helps everyone to experience this
Guided feedback sessions that link to success, failure and natural talents are based on a ‘safe’ framework such as Clifton Strengths. This enables effective feedback that is less ‘personal’ or ‘difficult’ in nature. Our teams are also awarded points for their feedback, thus encouraging the contributor and challenger safety elements of a psychologically safe team, making it a requirement and not a ‘nice to have’. Once this has been experienced, people realise that feedback is not as hard or as painful as they once thought, and this sets the team up for success back in the workplace.
When you create an environment where the team need to be vulnerable, our recommendation here would be that through expert coaching/guidance (by yourself or delivery partners) you intentionally commit to the ultimate success of the team throughout the event – if they all end at a point of success, they learn that all of the elements above are important, can be trusted and are therefore worth taking back to the workplace with them, along with their memories of a fantastic event. Of course you don’t tell them at the outset that success is guaranteed, and this does not take away from the work along the way, but ending on a win that proves the underlying principles is what will bridge the gap between concept and reality.
If you just so happen to take in the great outdoors along the way, more power to you – the proven benefits of combining the outdoors with work-based conservation and challenges is well-documented (but more on that another time…)
Benefits of cultivating psychological safety and trust:
Enhanced productivity: Trust and psychological safety lay the groundwork for a productive and collaborative work environment
Employee well-being: A supportive culture promotes the well-being of team members, contributing to engagement and enjoyment of people’s roles
Innovation: A psychologically safe environment fosters creativity and innovation
Risk-taking: Teams become more comfortable taking calculated risks, leading to growth and exploration of new possibilities
Conflict resolution: Trust enables open and honest communication, facilitating effective resolution of conflicts, and potentially prevention/reduction of such issues occurring
Conclusion:
By employing the principles above, you can go beyond regular team building and delight your teams with a fun and engaging experience, as well as being able to demonstrate a real return on investment to your organisation.
If you would like to discuss your next team build with us, please do drop us a line and we would be happy to expand on our building blocks for successful high performance team builds.
Comments