by admin | Sep 10, 2015 | free team building tips
“I’ve been appointed a team manager at a software consulting company. I was really happy with my luck in securing the position, until I found the mountain of problems awaiting me. Apparently, the previous manager swept a lot of employee and performance issues under the rug and it all didn’t come out until a week after his last day! According to the company’s database, projects were often submitted behind schedules, and some employees were rude and condescending to clients. To make things worse, one of the other developers doesn’t respect me. Because of his decade long tenure in the company, he thinks the position should’ve been given to him.” I got this email sometime in July, and after a bit of pondering I’ve decided to share it with you here. This situation is more common than you think. Companies often hire outsiders, especially if they feel no one in the team has the capacity to turn things around. Hopefully, not many of you are experiencing a similar situation. But if you are, here’s what I suggest: Here’s How to Fix a Dysfunctional Team. Assess the Situation Don’t just barge in demanding changes and implementing new rules without knowing what’s actually happening. On your first day, gather the whole team to introduce yourself and hold a team meeting. Let them know you’re aware of the issues, and ask for their own account of the incidents. Ask open ended questions, and don’t put blame on anyone even if information says otherwise. You want these people to open up and trust you, to tell you their side of the story. After everyone...
by admin | Sep 7, 2015 | free team building tips
Charity team building activities are a fantastic choice if you want your team to enjoy their event and want them to remember the activity in a positive way. The Build-A-Bike® team building event was the first nationally offered philanthropic team building event, and it is still one of the most popular programs in the world. The reason why these programs are so popular is that they are fun, they build teamwork, and at the end, the items that are created during the events are donated to charity. So, businesses who organize these meetings get the benefit of the camaraderie created in the activity and also the fantastic PR that comes from philanthropic donations to worth charities. One a the added side-benefits of charity team building activities is that meeting planners can sometimes pull from the philanthropy budget of the company to help offset his/her costs of the meeting as a whole. Not to just toot our own horn (well, maybe a little bit), one of the things that makes The Leader’s Institute® one of the largest and most requested team building event company in the world is that we specialize in making ordinary, day-to-day activities fun and entertaining. For instance, when was the last time you were sitting in your living room on Christmas Eve saying to yourself, “Man, I can’t wait to put that box of bike parts together.” The charity donation at the end of the event is critical, but it is a crescendo to the rest of the event. The activities that take play prior to the donation are what make philanthropic team building so popular....
by admin | Sep 6, 2015 | free team building tips
In the business world, the terms team building and team building events are used very often in a generic way to describe any type of event, activity, or game that helps coworkers see each other outside of the workplace. However, real team building events have a totally different focus and are often more difficult to get stellar results for the group. In this article, we’re going to cover why the term “team building event” is used so often in a generic way, why a team building professional can work better if some situations, and a few suggestions about how to make sure that when you conduct an event, your team receives great results. Avoid Using “Team Building” as a Generic Description The words team building can be used in a generic way to describe any activity that is fun (or what a single person thinks is a fun activity). As a result, team building activities can sometimes get a bad rap. The analogy I like to use to describe this is that the term “team building” is like the the term athlete in that it means different things to different people. Some people think of athletes as being only people who participate in contact sports, but if you’ve ever seen an Olympic marathon runner at the finish line and think, “How does he/she do that?” you can see how the “only contact sports” definition of an athlete can be misleading. Dallas/Ft Worth, where my company is based, is also the headquarters of the Professional Bowlers Association. Each of their members are professional athletes as well. So, the perception of...
