Teamwork is essential for any team-based company with the desire to grow.

A team is any group of individuals with complementary skills, organised to work together in order to achieve a common goal. The purpose of teambuilding is therefore to develop the team’s efficiency and effectiveness in achieving that goal.

If individuals do not feel recognised and rewarded, their focus shifts from the objectives of the overall business to simply meeting the key performance indicators required to fulfill their own role – in other words they do only what they need to get paid.  

Teamwork is essential for any team-based company with the desire to grow. If the company wishes to evolve and succeed, it must therefore develop its team(s). Without frequent teambuilding, teams can become de-motivated and levels of efficiency and effectiveness can be reduced. This is clearly going to damage the output of the team’s performance.

Types of teambuilding

There are many types of teambuilding events available from raft building, to ‘fall and catch me’ games, right through to our musical band experience days.

There isn’t a best type, but finding one that satisfies the required goals is essential. We aim to work with the client before we carry out an event in order to ensure we fully understand their key requirements, whether it’s to provide a fun day out to boost employee satisfaction, or to improve the teams understanding of the theoretical roles. Teambuilding should always have a fun element yet it should also aim to fulfil objectives and goals desired by the client.

Teambuilding tips

Here are our top five team building tips:

o   Develop a trusting environment.
o   Getting a set of clear goals.
o   Encourage open communication.
o   Interaction, Interaction, Interaction.
o   Measure and evaluate the progress you are making.

If you can get these 5 areas right, you can really build a great team.

To improve a team’s efficiency you must first think of the team as a system. Group members must not only recognise the importance of their individual role, but more critically they must understand how their role contributes to the overall success of both their team and the company in order for the system to work.

Both common sense and evidence tell us that groups are only as strong as their weakest link. Unintentionally and subconsciously, individuals can progressively destroy performance.

Choosing an event

Of course there is such a thing as a failed teambuilding event – one which does not satisfy the goals of the exercise or does not improve the functioning of the team or increase the effectiveness of team members. An example could be a ‘white water rafting’ event - fun for some, but terrifying for others.

Studies have shown that music is a great facilitator of both creativity and productivity. There are many benefits of using music as part of teambuilding; here are a few examples:

o   Music stimulates creative thinking, which ultimately encourages a more efficient approach to decision making.
o   Music has no discrimination, everyone can relate to it.
o   There is a strong relation between a band and a team. If one element is out of sync the whole band/team can fail.
o   Music involves key interaction skills such as listening and communicating, essential for the cooperation of teams.
o   Learning music allows individuals to gain a sense of achievement and enhance self esteem, unlike traditional fall and catch me games.

We advise our clients, prior to the event, to carry out a survey with the individuals taking part, in order analyse areas such as efficiency, communication, motivation and conflict. The answers can be reviewed after the event so management can make a direct comparison to identify the areas in which the team has improved.