There are basically two different types of team-building programs – those designed to reward & those designed to fix organizational problems.
Programs built to reward offer a fun day outside of the office where team members can become better acquainted and strengthen working relations. This can include retreats in backcountry Colorado or a scavenger hunt in downtown Denver. If you’re looking to reward your high-performing team, take a look at CBST Adventures. They offer some of the best outdoor team-building activities in Colorado.
The other form of team building – functional team building – is used to remedy interpersonal conflicts, prevent communication breakdowns, and result in real and lasting behavioral changes. Outdoor adventures can give your a team a great break from the daily grind, but lasting change that leads to greater long-term performance requires more involved and more consistent work.
Based upon decades of research and experience, we have designed an Executive Team Development Program that focuses around your organization’s real business problems and achieves lasting results
Does your executive team lack shared priorities, point fingers, and revisit decisions over and over again? Leaders often get stuck focusing on urgent day-to-day issues constantly putting out fires rather than seeking out new opportunities that can grow the business. When this happens, shared goals are lost, communication breaks down, the blame game ensues, and decisiveness vanishes.
Sound familiar?
Too many organizations facing trust issues believe their solution lies in a grand retreat for their team. Remove them from the work environment and make them interact on a personal level. This will garner mutual respect that will be applied to business problems when they return to work, right?
Actually this approach has it backwards. You should first identify a core business problem and align your team around a common goal. After alignment, collaboration becomes easier. As your team develops solutions & works together, mutual respect can develop as the team sees results. Team members will begin to trust one another again as their strengths begin to show. It will establish a framework for resolving future issues and lead to lasting change.
This is easier said than done, of course, and you may need some guidance when designing your team building plan. What’s important though is that your plan is focused around your personal business problems not fictional scenarios. Not only will you improve alignment and communication but you will also be solving a current problem for your organization!
Think first about your objectives. Are you looking to reward your team or to solve interpersonal issues? If it’s the latter, identify a real business problem, remove distractions, align your team, and focus on getting something done. You’ll then see mutual trust and respect emerge over time.
For assistance developing an effective program, contact us and we’ll see if we can help.