Ideas for Team Building: Trust and Loyalty

If you want ideas for team building drive down to you nearest major bookstore and look in the business section. You’ll find hundreds if not thousands of ideas. It's enough to make your head spin.

Every day you see or read about the newest management fad. . .

“Team” is a word batted around like a proverbial tennis ball. We have sales teams, HR teams, marketing teams. It’s really easy to get flooded under the mounds of ideas that flood the market.

Is There a Common Thread?

At it’s core, team building is simply about people making meaningful connections with other people - working together to meet a common goal or solve a common problem.

The nebulous term, “team building” is often used to define the process managers undertake in order to enable their staff to make these meaningful connections with one another usually to boost productivity.

As if people need some sort of corporate brainwashing in order to trick them into working cooperatively with others. These "ideas for team building” range from workshops on improving communication skills, to wearing funny hats in front of a large group of people.

From the worker’s perspective these events are often looked upon with distain, for good reason.

Yet the question remains: “What are some good ideas for team building? That don‘t make you look or feel like an idiot?”

It seems to me, and I may be in the minority, team building is not an event, it is a culture. If you want people to behave in a certain way, your organization, from the top down, must model appropriate behavior.

The High Price of Fear

The consummate leader cultivates the moral law, and strictly adheres to method and discipline; thus it is in his power to cultivate success. Sun Tzu Download "The Art of War" and Improve Your Team Building Strategy

Okay, so fear crushes my team's communication and performance. But what is causing this fear?

1. Lack of Knowledge - Ignorance
2. Lack of Skill - Incompetence
3. Lack of Safety - Poor Working Environment

Fear, almost invariably, derives itself from essential knowledge your team is lacking. But how do you create an environment that fosters learning?

There are three key ideas for team building in order to establish an empowered team centered environment:

1. Structure - Set ground rules to focus action
2. Nurturing - Support creative problem solving
3. Problem Solving Community - Encourage curiosity as the main motive of action

Most people are afraid of change. Thus, building an engrained culture, a tribal environment safe for critical thinking and creative problem solving is an important first step as an idea for team building. Once this first step has been taken the others fall into place almost naturally.

Do you really need to build a safe problem solving environment?

Ask yourself: “How do my people respond to everyday challenges?”

Is your team bold sharing their ideas within the group? Are challenges and problems presented, brainstormed, and solved quickly? Or do problems seem to linger, day after day, growing like mold on a piece of cheese? Does your team shy away from sharing ideas because they fear being ridiculed within the group?

The Team That Learns is the Team That Listens

How do we encourage people to present their ideas within a team setting? We allow people a voice and forum to use it without feat of reprisal. In most cases, especially in the business world, people are often smarted than those around them give them credit for.

Meaning: The guy that talks a lot isn’t necessarily the smartest guy on the team, the quiet one isn‘t the idiot. Empowering team members with an equal “voice” in meetings could be a profound shift in establishing trust in your team and organization.

With trust ideas flow more assertively, as people communicate easier, without fear of being condemned for unfamiliar ideas. Rapport is built throughout your organization.

Go to Top of Ideas for Team Building

Hey. . . take me back to the Team Building Homepage!