When you go about organising a team activity, you should be aware of what, exactly, you are looking to achieve with that activity. You can, of course, discuss this with your activity provider, and indeed a good activity provider will ask you what the target outcomes are for any given activity.
But at the same time, you should think about this before even engaging with the provider. The clearer you are on what you want to get from an activity, the more you will get from it.
What does a successful team-building activity achieve?
On the most basic of levels, a successful team-building activity will entertain. And that in itself has value; people who are entertained, or have the opportunity to take their mind away from work for a time are people that go back to their work rejuvenated.
But there’s more to it than that. A good team-building activity is in some way educational. That is to say, the team will come out of the activity with knowledge or expertise that they didn’t have previously, and will function better as a result. This could be as simple as helping a team to better understand the strengths and capabilities of their co-workers, and therefore be able to return to work as a more cohesive and efficient group. A team-building activity might be used to identify the leaders in the group. Or encourage out-of-the-box thinking. That’s why it’s so important to develop a team building activity with a specific outcome in mind; the value that the team can derive from it can vary greatly, depending on what the activity is.
Choose the right provider
Once you’ve got an idea on the specific outcomes that you’re looking to achieve with your activity, it’s time to involve the activities provider. A good activities provider will be consultative in nature, and rather than recommend something standard (i.e. a package of a brochure once they know what your budget is), they will instead work with you to develop a program of events that hones in on the particular skillset that you’re looking to explore or develop in your team.
Because businesses – including yours – are so varied and dynamic, highly tailored programs and activities should be the norm, and you want to work with a provider that takes it upon themselves to really understand your business, the personalities involved, and come up with activities to suit.
It’s important to also be able to ask a provider “why” with regards to any activity – “why will this achieve X result,” and “why would my team benefit from Y?” Again, it’s not enough for the provider to simply point to a pre-written explanation of the activity – you want to hear how, specifically, the activity will work for your organisation.
The traits of a good activities provider
Which brings us to the five traits that you want to see in your activities provider. If you’re able to check these off, you can be sure that whatever the provider organises and then executes for your will deliver value well beyond the activity itself – it won’t just be entertaining, but impactful on your business too:
1) Your provider can explain the team building program in full detail, and make it relevant to your business and your desired learning outcomes from the program itself.
2) Your provider must be able to get your teams talking and communicating. More than any other benefit, the goal of every team building activity is to facilitate communication and co-operation within your team. It’s even more beneficial if the provider, working with you, is then able to transfer those discussions that the activity generates back into the workplace.
3) The provider will facilitate a high quality debrief at the end of the activity for the group to participate in. This is the opportunity to make the activity’s relevance to the workplace explicit, and allow people in the team to share ideas and thoughts about how to use the activity as the catalyst for change within the organisation.
4) The provider will also give you guidance on how to continue the conversation and education on after the event has concluded. This means the scheduling of post-event internal workshops and discussion groups that the team can apply as routine to their weekly schedule.
5) Finally, the provider will facilitate post-event surveys to provide you with feedback and help you identify areas that are both strengths, and in need of ongoing development within the organisation.
Be Challenged prides itself on each event manager focusing their work on the five traits above. To us, it’s not just about organising an event for your teams. It’s about understanding your business, and using that understanding to facilitate better results for the entire organisation.
Contact us today on 1300 723 476 for more information, and to start the conversation on what group activities could do for your business.