Positive Branding

8 Experts Reveal Their Top Tips on Team Building Success

07-03-2024

Teams are what drive success within a business, but a team that gets on like a house on fire can sometimes be hard to achieve, especially with personality clashes or isolation due to the nature of the job at hand. Many business owners are now taking advantage of team building activities in order to increase employee confidence, productivity and make the team as a whole more harmonious in their working environment.

Research conducted by Total Team Building found that 90% of leaders think an engagement strategy has an impact on business success - but only 25% of these business owners have an actual strategy in place. Over at Positive Branding we recognise the need for a coordinated and positive working environment, and found that team building has been shown to positively impact outcomes by providing some useful benefits such as:

Improved morale
Increased leadership skills
Identifies areas of strengths and weakness
Increases problem solving skills
Forms new bonds and increases respect within the team

The right team building strategy and activity will really help to create plenty of business (and personal) opportunities. Check out what our chosen experts had to say about team building and what actionable advice they have. We asked the below experts one simple question:

What are your top tips when it comes to team building?

Let’s see what these branding experts have to say…

I'd definitely say our top tips for team building are trusting someone's judgment and LOTS of communication. Within an escape game, it's imperative that every member shares all their resources and information. If somebody doesn't tell the team about something they've discovered then they'll all struggle! Teams must also trust and support one another in the games when it comes to exploring new ideas or possible solutions. Playing an escape game is a unique and fun way for a team to bond and discover their strengths and leadership style.

1 - Give players a common goal to complete.

Live games give groups the opportunity to develop their skills as a team, as a side effect of having fun. By giving players a common goal to work towards – solve puzzles effectively in order to get as many points as possible, and beat the other teams - we encourage them to be both cooperative and competitive, while keeping the experience entertaining and fun.

2 - Give teams challenges that require the coordination of different skills.

The puzzles included in the games require a variety of skills to be solved, so playing the game becomes a matter of teams recognising each player’s strengths and developing a group dynamic that makes optimum use of those strengths. This creates an environment in which everyone is valuable and has the opportunity to contribute to problem solving.

3 – Have fun!

Team building activities should be fun and engaging. Games are one of the best ways to do this, as they naturally give players a sense of autonomy, competence and social relatedness in a fun and entertaining environment. Players get to have fun and have a memorable shared experience while developing skills that translate seamlessly into the real world.

1 - The team building event concept

Delegates are intelligent and relish a genuine challenge. Look for a company who can provide more sophisticated and better thought out concepts with a strong storyline that bind the various challenges and tasks together. This will help increase engagement levels in participants.

2 - The quality of the equipment

You would have hoped that the ropes, planks and barrels team building events were assigned to the history books long ago. Sadly, they are still prevalent in the industry today. Ask to see a demonstration of the equipment that will be on your event and avoid anything that looks like it’s been purchased from the local DIY store! Intelligent events with realistic props and equipment will add a huge amount to the delegate experience.

3 - The people on your event

The quality and skill of the individuals who will interact with your delegates will add a huge amount to the overall experience. Ask your provider about the staff on your event and what roles they play. Avoid companies who use dual roles for the event manager and presenter as these are and should be two different skill sets and you deserve experts within each individual role.

4 - A team event that is personalised to your team and your brand

Will drive engagement levels much more creating a far more memorable experience. Choose a team building agency who are interested in what your group are doing for the rest of the time at their offsite outside of the team building activity. They will be ain a stronger position to recommend solutions that are more aligned with the group and the overall meeting outcomes.

5 - Look for an innovative experience

There’s a good chance that a number of your delegates will have been on many team building events in the past. Avoid the traditional ropes, planks and barrels and look for genuinely innovative experiences that are more sophisticated, involving and memorable. Activities that tick these boxes will engage the whole group at a much deeper level.

6 - Added value

A team building event can be so much more than just a fun time for your delegates. Getting the whole team together is often a once in a year opportunity, so whilst you’ve already made the effort and expense to get everybody there, look for learning and growth and development opportunities and weave these through the team building event.

7 - Choosing experienced team to deliver your event

On a live event, you’ve only got one chance to get it right. So choose a team that has a long track record of doing just that. Ask to speak to past clients who have had a similar event to yours to get their unbiased feedback.

We live in an uncertain and complex world where the hierarchical approach to organization structure is fast becoming obsolete so, building effective teams are more important today than it has ever been as. Here are 3 tips for building effective teams:

Building trust within any team is vital and is largely about getting commitment from all.
Invest time to develop emotional intelligence of all team members, which is about self-awareness, self-analysis, self-regulation and others awareness.
The essence of teamwork is mutual accountability where all team members take responsibility for their actions, behaviours and outputs.

Fiona Elsa Dent and Mike Brent authors of “The Leadership of Team: How to develop and inspire high performance teams” (2017) Bloomsbury

The first thing is clarity. this can be clarity on goals, expectations, and job descriptions. Anyone can bear the course as long as they know the reward they get in the end. this way, you have people willing to build what you are creating instead of just having people doing "time".

Second is: Celebrate achievements. Whenever you reach any milestones or a team member does, not only does that motivate that individual and the rest of the team, but it drives your cause. Humans are motivated by growth. If something is not growing, it's dying. No one wants to keep beating a dead horse.

Last but not least, hire more for attitude than skill. When you have the people with the right attitude, it's easier to train them to do the job well. if you hire people just because of what their resume says, not most of them will get along and that creates a toxic working space.

The top tips we recommend is understanding what you are trying to achieve out of the team building event

Is it for increased productivity, improving communication, develop problem solving or keeping employee motivated?

As team building is NOT one size fits all, understanding the objectives allows us to tailor and recommend an event that is focused on the outcomes and results. We always like to learn as much as we can about the client and the team, so that we understand the demographics and culture of the organisation. This will allow us to recommend and design an event that is inclusive to everyone, but most importantly fun and engaging to leave a lasting and memorable experience.

For more information on 8 Experts Reveal Their Top Tips on Team Building Success talk to Positive Branding