Why does team building fail? In my experience, it’s because people focus on superficial, short-term activities rather than the deeper thoughts and behaviors that help people collaborate well.

The standard approach to team building is to schedule some infrequent event where people do some trivial activity together and are expected to magically become a unified group. There’s usually some sort of bean bag toss, obstacle course, or scavenger hunt involved, none of which actually teach anyone anything about the thoughts and behaviors that create cohesive teams.

The problem with shallow team building is that it’s sort of fun for an hour or two at best or, at its worst, turns into some competitive nightmare that divides people even more. It also never really helps people come together long-term because it doesn’t address the underlying issues that prevent people from working well together.

We haven’t been taught effective ways of building teams in our companies and organizations and we tend to default to a sports team model where everyone is part of a unit designed to only win and ruled from above by a dictator. There is very little creativity or critical thinking allowed, you just have to conform and do your part or the leader will get mad at you and punish you in some way.

Thankfully, you now have access to a much better option to help you build dynamic, strong, cohesive teams. All it takes is looking below the surface and doing things like:

• Creating a work environment where everyone is valued.
• Getting rid of hierarchy.
• Teaching people how to work together.
• Addressing the thoughts and behaviors that destroy teams.
• Putting much less emphasis on competition and more on collaboration.
• Praising people.
• Helping people connect on a deeper level.
• Setting aside the time to practice team building.
• Committing to ongoing team building.

When you do the things listed above, you’re in a much stronger position to bring your people together. I’ve had many leaders and managers over the years be surprised by how much better their workplaces function when they do some basic things that help people come together in a meaningful way.

Deeper team building provides you many benefits, including:

• Increased trust.
• Better collaboration.
• Solving problems more easily.
• Open communication.
• Being proactive instead of reactive.
• More empathy.
• A kinder workplace.
• People building interpersonal connections.
• Higher motivation.
• Greater investment in the company.
• Increased productivity.
• More creativity.
• People feeling valued.

Imagine what your workplace would look like if people practiced these things. You’d enjoy the rewards that come from you and your employees getting along well and working together successfully.

Because we’ve almost exclusively designed companies and organizations that are strictly hierarchical and geared toward competition, we’ve created a mess where people don’t know how to interact positively and work collaboratively. The good news is that you can change this trend by teaching yourself and your staff some core team building skills that will help everyone get better results.

It’s your choice whether you continue expecting the same one-dimensional team building activities to lead to different outcomes or whether you develop and implement a deeper, ongoing program that helps you and your staff collaborate effectively. Only one of these paths leads to long-term success. Cheers, Guy.

Bring Your People Together and Create a Thriving Culture of Team Building with My Advanced Team Building Program