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The Team Building Away Day – And Why They Never Work

August 13, 2007 by admin

 

“In order to strengthen the concept of team working and/or cross sector team working, part of the awarding authority’s training budget is allocated to teams/regions for development days out of the office. Corporate training days for all the awarding authority’s staff are also held three times per annum, with the aim of promoting communication and sharing …”

I see this sort of thing on an almost daily basis – and it drives me mad!

An ‘authority’ with silos and poor cross-sectoral working thinking things will be fixed with some time out of the office teambuilding.

When teams start solving problems involving planks, barrels, rafts, pretend minefields/alligators/swamps and so on, team work will come shining through, because it will be incentivised, praised and rewarded. Trainers will look for behaviours that lead to good teamwork and cross departmental collaboration (open, honest communication, good listening etc) and will reward these behaviours with affirming feedback, praise and a warm cup of Bovril. Behaviours that undermine good teamwork will attract adjusting feedback and suggestions for behaviours that might work better. Team performance will be compared and clear winners and losers will be established – and no-one will want to lose.

The trainers will do what good managers would be doing every day. Observing what people do, comparing it to what the organisations requires from them and providing feedback and coaching.

Instead of burning the training budget with expensive off-sites and corporate training days the ‘authority’ should invest in setting up a process for clarifying the kinds of behaviours and outcomes that it wants to see in the organisation.

It should then set up a rigorous system of supervision and support (121s) so that every employee gets weekly feedback and coaching designed to encourage the desired behaviours and discourage the rest.

For a fraction of the cost of these ‘offsites’ the desired behaviours would become prevalent throughout the organisation within 6 months.

GUARANTEED.

So the next time you find yourself asking your training department to set up a Team Building away day – just ask yourself if there might not be a better, more systematic and cost effective way of getting the results that you want.

Or better still – give me a call!

Filed Under: Leadership, management Tagged With: 121s, coaching, feedback, Leadership, management, performance improvement, performance management, Teamwork

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