Why Team Building Is Essential (and Creative Ways to Do it)
Owning your own business or managing your own department is a professional life goal for many of us in the world of business, and now that you are finally there, the pieces all seem to be falling into place. You have achieved a high level of professionalism and ability in your field, and are ready to take the bull by the horns into your next corporate venture. However, while you are ready to succeed as an individual, you need to remember that you are only as effective as the team you manage. The key to any successful workforce is a strong team of able and hard-working individuals who are led by you, a manager or boss who values them and has the skills to bring everyone together to achieve the best you can.
To this end, the idea of team building exercises and ideas come into play as these are a key way of ensuring your employees are performing to the best of their ability and ensuring success in all of your professional endeavors.
The Importance of Building a Strong Team
If you are not already convinced, then it is important to do your research into why team building is of paramount importance to making your business grow, your department flourish, and your staff happy and content. It is even suggested on Forbes that team building is the best investment you can ever make.
We have all had the experience of having a colleague we are compelled to work with but, despite our best efforts, we simply do not get along with. As a boss, you now have the authority and responsibility to intervene in these workplace scrimmages by taking a proactive approach to helping your colleagues get along. After all, if your team is argumentative with one another, or not effectively cooperating together, how can you establish an outstanding business?
Everyday Ways to Make Your Team the Best it Can Be
The first thing to think about when it comes to team building is the everyday ways of improving the people you manage. By modifying the way you lead and manage a team to constantly prioritize strengthening office relations, you will be providing employees with a clear, clarified way of working together while also offering consistency and inspiring confidence in your leadership.
For example, by ensuring the people you manage have a pleasant communal space to work through ideas together, hold informal meetings, and socialize on their breaks, will create a productive atmosphere. In allowing everyone to have a space in which they can address concerns and bounce ideas off each other about various projects your employees will reap the benefits of having a safe space to work as well as a relaxed environment to lower their stress and socialize with one another on their breaks.
As a leader, you can also go above and beyond in this particular task, by making sure the communal area has amenities for your colleges to make and store lunches as well as somewhere they can get beverages to keep them going through the workday.
Work-shopping How to Make Meaningful Business Relationships
Aside from the day to day efforts to team build, a great idea is to run a workshop on how to build lasting professional relationships. This will be an invaluable resource for your team both inside and outside of the office. In taking them through some simple skills and approaches to making business relationships work, they will be able to transfer these skills seamlessly into their everyday office interactions.
For example, holding a presentation about how to work on a group project effectively can do wonders. By establishing a way to ensure jobs are delegated, that the aims and goal are clarified, and reaffirming simple rules such as waiting until someone has finished speaking before critiquing or adding to their ideas will foster healthy and productive working relations.
Improving Communication Skills as a Team Building Method
Communication is a huge part to having a successful team but to may not initially strike us as a pillar of team building, but the importance of good communication is paramount and something you, as a manager, can really set an example of for others to follow. This can involve taking simple measures to make sure yourself and all of your team are on the same page and working to the same rhythm.
One way of doing this is by keeping a detailed diary or organizer of things to do. On each day, make of note of jobs you need your staff to complete. This will mean, right from the first thing in the morning, you are laying out a clear schedule for everyone and, as they complete each task and report back to you, you can use this organizer to work out what needs to be done next and when by. By placing yourself as, essentially, a taskmaster, none of your employees will ever be in the dark about the jobs they need to complete. As well as this, it will establish yourself as a point of reference for all your employees to report to on a daily basis, giving a clear structure to how they work.
Taking Team Building Outside of the Office
Something that is massively important to consider is the idea of taking team building outside of the office. Some ideas for this are company meals or games of bowling, but these are more social events and treats than team building master classes. One brilliant option is to book you and your team into doing some Escape Games. Escape Rooms work by compelling everyone in the room to collaboratively work to solve puzzles and problems to solve the ultimate goal of escaping the room. This will endow your team with transferable skills to take back into the office, while also promote socializing between employees who perhaps are not yet acquainted.
Using a resource such as this is a worthwhile investment that will lay the foundations of the strong team for years to come.
