Too many companies wrongly believe that team building is nothing more than allowing people to develop relationships and compete to win a prize. There is much research to the contrary, however, this is how it has always been done, it’s easy, and there is no accountability for long term change.
To measure the effectiveness of a team building event, you must know how your teams are currently performing, and then measure the change after the event. There are many variables such as organizational culture, team design and business process variables. Organizational culture that surrounds a team is an important consideration in the measuring of team building effectiveness. Additional variables that must be addressed when looking at team building effectiveness are (but not limited to);
Our research and that of many others has identified the 5 variables that are most significantly related to team building (not just the event) success. They are:
Team building effectiveness is realized when the objectives are achieved (i.e., better communication, mutual guarantee, etc.), and efficiency is realized when the objectives have been achieved without wasting resources (sub-optimized action, fingerpointerosis, ect.). ECG’s pre-planning process will help you create objectives that encourage the sharing of knowledge, experiences, successes, and failures in order to awaken a Corporate Entrepreneurial spirit that will change the way you do business!
The traditional team building events that foster competition, creation of “one-off” relationships, and have a tendency to objectify human beings (as human resources). Managers influence the managed in favor of predefined objectives (to win), thus turning them into a means to achieve an end, reducing people to little more than the equivalent of a piece of machinery.
If it was easy all we would have to do is go to a show, play a game, or go to a bar and our teams would work great together…Oh Yeah, that is what most team building has been. How’s it working for you?
Contact Sue@entrepreneurialway.net to set up your complementary team building event consultation
Leave a Reply