Team Building Blog

Believe it or not, the holidays are already just around the corner and my favorite holiday is first on the list - Halloween! Halloween is the perfect opportunity to gather your team and take part in a fantastic team building activity called Movie Mayhem! Imagine your CEO dressed up as the Big Bad Wolf in Granny’s pajamas or picture your co-workers dressed as pirates swashbuckling it up on the promenade. Then aargh ye teammatees, Movie Mayhem is callin’!

Teams begin the activity learning about the different roles on a movie set and important part they play in the production, much like a team where you work. Then, the fun begins. Grab hold of your video camera, identify your team’s movie genre and take to your private room to create your script. You’ll then dive into your box of costumes and props and the fun and filming really gets cooking! Movie Mayhem is like no other team building activity. How often do you get to dress up as a cowboy or a medieval knight at work?

Once each team wraps up shooting and editing their movies, everyone will gather together for the gala movie premiers. Grab hold of some popcorn and treats, sit back and prepare to laugh yourself silly! After the Movie Mayhem movies are shown, the award ceremony begins and everyone will vote for awards like Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Funniest Character, Most Ridiculous Actor and many more categories. We’ll work with you to create some insane categories too!

Everyone can get candy at Halloween. Wouldn’t you rather walk away with an “Oscar” statue?

We’ve been learning about team building ever since we were four years old watching Saturday morning cartoons in our pajamas. Think about Tom and Jerry for a moment. Poor Jerry Mouse spends most of an episode being chased, stepped on or whacked by a fly swatter by Tom Cat until he finds an ally or two. Usually Jerry teams up with Spike the bulldog, his Cousin Muscles or the little yellow canary Cuckoo and once they put their heads together and join forces, the tables turn on Tom.

We play this game of cat and mouse every day at work whether it's about landing a sale, preparing for a presentation or figuring out how to do more with less (as many companies are these days). We need to rely on our team members because the fact is, everyone is going through the same stresses so why go through it alone? Do you even know all of your team members and coworkers? We need to take the time to get to know our neighbor so that we can think outside the box to solve our problems. Maybe they have the solution on how to stop spending our day running from Tom? Team building isn’t just needed when there are communication issues on the team. Most often, team building is a great opportunity to bond, have fun, release stress and learn how to think outside the box.

We would all be more inclined to ask for help if we got to know our coworkers better. Whether it's during a fun team building activity like Movie Mayhem, a GeoQuest Treasure Hunt or solving a murder mystery during CSI NegativeZero, you’ll have the opportunity to work with your team and find some common ground. That stranger at the water cooler could be your “Spike” or that guy who always winds up being first in the lunch line may just be the “Cuckoo” you need.

Scooby Doo had his pals in the Mystery Machine, Yogi had Boo Boo, Fred had Barney and even Mickey has his Clubhouse friends. Cartoons don’t go in it alone so why should we?

Be sure to check out the great article where co-owners of Teambuilding, Inc. Merrick Rosenberg & Jeff Backal are featured regarding teams and team building. The article is in the April 2011 issue of South Jersey Biz.

Have you ever heard the expression, “I hate team building”?

Throughout my 20 year career in the team building world, I have heard this expression numerous times (of course, this is before they work with my organization). More often than not, team building participants love their experience as team building is a lot of fun and helps develop necessary skills such as; trust, communication, team bonding, and breaking down silos... But, even when a very small percentage of people make this statement, it concerns me as an owner of a national team building firm. So, I decided to probe a little bit further.

Over the past few years when people made comments to me like “I hate team building” or “not another team building program,” I asked them to elaborate on their comment. What I found interesting during this informal study was that everyone answered my question in a similar fashion, and it went something like this:

“My company has us do wacky team building programs. At first they were fun, but now I just don't have the patience for more of these touchy feely games. Enough is enough. We don’t learn anything and it just wastes everyone’s time.”

Typically, the individuals that respond like this are from companies that imposed team building activities on their employees without really determining the needs of their people.

If you want your staff to have a positive team building experience that helps them improve their group dynamics, I would suggest the following:

1. Assess the needs of your team – Without conducting a needs assessment (such a our Team Effectiveness Inventory), how do you know the real issues that need to be addressed during the team building program?
2. Combine developmental programs with fun team events – For example, one month do a program such as Why We Click With Some And Clank With Others (which is a developmental session on adapting your communication style to create a more powerful relationship with those on your team) and a few months later do a program like GeoQuest (a fun team bonding treasure hunt using hand held GPS units).
3. Don’t overdo team building – If you are implementing more than six team building events during a year, it will dilute the effectiveness of each program.

These are just a few suggestions. To learn more, I would recommend reading Team Building? 12 Questions to Help you Make the Right Decision by Merrick Rosenberg, Chief Learning Officer and President of Team Builders Plus.

Have you ever been in a relationship where it is impossible to please everyone all the time? Well here is my situation with my work team. Although I love my teammates dearly, we were having a constant battle over the office temperature. (I know, if this is our biggest point of contention, I shouldn’t complain.) While this seems to be a minor issue (and I suppose it is), Old Man Winter is knocking on our door and the battle over the thermostat is getting, well, quite heated. Half of my team members come to work bundled up in parkas, while others (including myself) wear short sleeves.

As a team building company, I want my fellow team members to be happy. And while I consider us to be a high-performance team, I know that most teams are not as fortunate as us. Every day, we see how they struggle with all sorts of workplace problems, including jumping to conclusions, making rapid decisions before assessing the whole situation (especially when they are on short deadlines), and not searching for the best solution to a problem…

These types of workplace problems can be easily solved when approached properly and the correct processes are used. Determining the best solution for the problem requires an effective problem solving process. We have helped numerous clients to enhance their problem solving skills through our training program, Solving Workplace Problems.

This program can be used to resolve anything from our climate zone issue in our office to fixing the larger scale issues that plague companies. Do you want to learn more about this program? Check out the Teambuilding, Inc. Management Training program: Solving Workplace Problems.