Maximizing Your Team-Building Offsite Event

A free article on Motivation

By: Daiv Russell

Janet, a group manager, complained to her human resources consultant, Larry, that her group does not function as a team. Janet's team did not help each other out, didn't care about one another, and didn't want to share information with each other. These were just a few of problems she was having. She and Larry came up with the solution to take this out of the working environment for a couple of days and take their team to a resort to resolve this problem. They put together a plan where they would work on trust, ice-breaking, and brainstorming to better the team in working together.

Only half of Janet's team attended the first day of the offsite, and those members were too tired to actively participate. The other half of the team was frantically working on a project due later that week. Janet's main purpose for the offsite was team building, which left no official business reason for it to occur. While the brainstorming went reasonably well, the members present did not indicate that any action was to occur later. To summarize, the offsite was a waste of time for everyone involved.

This may sound like a huge exaggeration to some, but to others it reminds them of an offsite they planned themselves or attended. Offsites are very successful in providing the means for helping the team to focus on business problem solving, fine-tuning strategies and coming up with totally new approaches for doing things. An important side result of offsites is that the real team-building that happens while trying to solve different business problems. When an offsite is done well, it will help to create better teams that work better together, thus accomplishing more when addressing business issues. When an offsite is done poorly, the team members will view it as a waste of time which reflects poorly on your leadership abilities.

Do you want your offsites to be successful at team-building while also ensuring productivity? If so, you should consider the following ideas:

If you are having an offsite meeting for 'Team Building', do yourself a favor and declare how your meeting actually improves business. It's important to have real business goals for the meeting. Actual business development such as sales goals for the next year, new customer service ideas or trying to fix a nagging problem are some ideas to concentrate on. If you tell you employees the meeting is for "Team Building" they may feel that the meeting is unimportant and won't really help the business. In reality, you are building your team and solving business problems at the same time.

Provide plenty of time for networking - Give ample time during the day and evening for the team to have snacks, enjoy beverages, and just talk about whatever strikes them. Team building starts with building relationships, and building relationships starts with getting to know each other. Allow for networking time to be free and unscripted and let the team enjoy some casual conversation with each other.

You need to make sure that you hold your offsite conference at a time when there isn't a crush of business. An offsite conference is useless if members of the team have to constantly check their email or answer phone calls. While no time is ever perfect for an offsite, you don't want to hold it when your team is distracted or exhausted.

Make it an overnight event - Some of the best offsites I've held were those where the team ate dinner together, enjoyed a couple of drinks, and stayed up late discussing major business problems or brainstorming on a radically new strategy. These late night sessions were valuable in that team members put their heads together to address some problem or opportunity. More importantly, team members built relationships which provided an outstanding foundation for strong teams.

Put together a follow-up plan to continue the work from the offsite - One of the most frustrating things I've experienced with offsites was the lack of a follow-up plan to implement some of the great ideas which came out of the offsite. Put together an actionable follow-up plan with tasks, dates, and owners and you'll keep the excitement going out of the offsite and will get some of the great ideas implemented. Neglect putting together a follow-up plan and you'll have an offsite that the team sees as a waste of time.

Information about the Author:

Daiv Russell is a marketing and management consultant with Envision Consulting in Tampa, Florida. Find more Team Building Ideas, techniques, and exercises or learn more about finding the root cause of your organization's teamwork issues.

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