Team offsites can be powerful forums for team cohesion, creativity, collaboration and commitment, if you do it right.

Do not start by googling “teambuilding ideas”

The success of an away day comes from focusing on what you really need to achieve – the cold hard ROI plus the non-negotiable emotions that come with the outcomes you want. You need to be specific, which is why generic icebreakers and teambuilding exercises off the internet often fall short.

The picture you see was the result of a request from a global COO who could see that his teams were finding it hard to give up projects they were working on, were always searching for the perfect solution, causing cost overruns and a backlog of work.

He asked me if I could come up with “an interesting presentation” so that his senior team, and their teams would “know that this is harming the business, our balance sheet and our reputation.”

He wanted me to teach them about resilience so that they could be more flexible and adaptable to change.

But here’s the thing:

People don’t avoid or resist because they don’t know what the “right” thing to do is

They do the thing that carries the least personal risk. Which is actually the right thing in personal survival terms.

To change, requires experience of future pleasure that will off-set the imminent pain of doing things differently in the here and now.

And that’s where I come in; I design experiences that allow people to experience the full range of emotions in a safe environment so that they know what change could look and, even more importantly, feel like.

Experiential learning beats PowerPoint and Excel driven offsites every time

Instead of “teaching” anything, I always find PowerPoint-free ways to get teams to experience something that generates the same challenges and emotions they face back at work.

After my briefing with the COO, I knew I wanted to use Patrick Lencioni’s model to underpin the experience.

Dysfunction #1: Absence of Trust
Fear of being vulnerable with team members prevents the building of trust on a team.

Dysfunction #2: Fear of Conflict
The desire to preserve artificial harmony stifles the occurrence of productive ideological conflict.

Dysfunction #3: Lack of Commitment
The lack of clarity or buy-in prevents team members from making decisions they will stick to.

Dysfunction #4: Avoidance of Accountability
The need to avoid interpersonal discomfort prevents team members from holding one another accountable.

Dysfunction #5: Inattention to Results
The pursuit of individual goals and personal status erodes the focus on collective results.

Teambuilding exercises that work don’t have to be extreme

I was born in a country where there was a civil war and it doesn’t rain much, so the idea of “teambuilding” in a semi-military fashion involving physical hardship and lots of mud has never appealed. Those extreme sport away days can be a journey into the self. But honestly?

“You could discover more about yourself and your limitations in the coaching room where more could happen in less time. And with less mud.”

My goal with client offsites is to build cohesion and self-awareness

Awareness of how you really feel when put under pressure, not how you think you’d feel. Awareness of how the group works – or fails to work – when under pressure. And I want to make visible the elements of group behavior that are not noticed or not valued in the hub bub of everyday work.

I specialise with working with knowledge professionals; Aaccountants, auditors, lawyers, programmers, researchers. Clever people who understand the arcane workings of contract law, data gathering or IT networks.

So it’s important to create an exercise that makes them THINK and:

Plan ahead

Budget

Disagree

Prioritize and decide

Deal with unexpected events

Compete

Recognise failure and deal with it

Celebrate success

It’s also important that it makes them FEEL

Everyone wants high performing, high value, cohesive teams

These teams:

Avoid wasting time talking about the wrong issues and revisiting the same topics over and over again because of lack of buy-in

Make higher quality decisions and accomplish more in less time and fewer resources

Are comfortable asking for help, admitting mistakes and limitations and take risks offering feedback

Tap into one another’s skills and experiences

Put critical topics on the table and have lively meetings

Align the team around common objectives

Retain star employees

Every person in that picture I showed you has just experienced what it feels like to be in a high-performing team. And the photographer captured the moment they were undergoing a de-brief where we both celebrated results as well as dissected what they could have done better.

What you are looking at is resilience

This was exactly what the COO had wanted. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Develoopment ( CIPD) defines resilience as:

“a sense of adaptation, recovery and bounce back despite adversity or change”

They go on to say:

“The greater the diversity of resilience strategies available to an organization, the greater its ability to respond to challenges. Having a number of strategies provides a bigger buffer to survive larger crises, or the cumulative effect of frequent crises. “

Does teambuilding solve everything?

No. But then what would? When I work with clients, I encourage them to consider the vital importance of follow up which can include:

buddy systems

peer learning groups

feedback loops

1-2-1 coaching

If your team looks like the one above when they’re de-briefing their errors and omissions you’ve done a great job.

If not, it really doesn’t have to be that way.

Check out how I work:

Team Gatherings

Or book a conversation:

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How to create a successful team offsite