team build, team building, fast cash

Traditionally suppliers were usually former HR trainers, psychologists or had a military background, providing a good base to develop and deliver quality team training programs. Today the market is filled with everyone from slick business people with an interactive experience to sell, to former employees of team building companies with an entrepreneurial streak, to high flying extroverts with a skill for talking and presenting.

Yes it is all there on the internet for the buyers to view, scrutinise, and choose what type of team building initiative they are going to engage for the upcoming company off-site or away day!

Everything from bowling to basketball to canoeing to fitness activities are being promoted as team building programs these days. Without commenting on what experiences are value for money and will deliver a good ROI, to what is rubbish and will bore your team to death with their mediocrity, our challenge today is to give you the basics in where to start when looking for a great program that will provide you with bang for your buck!

Firstly, when you Google for ideas, it is important to realise that because a supplier is listed high on the sponsored links part of the page, doesn't always mean that they are the best option. Anyone can pay to appear on the sponsored links page!

These team building games are classic and as such they will never age. These games will always be effective tools for team development. Of course fashionable developments within team theory will come and go. But the archetypal team games will always be current because they are basic experiential problem solving tools. Dress them up in whatever story line or form but behind every team game are the original games. Even the names of some of these original games show their military background, such as Minefield and Bridge Build.

There is something very pleasing about these early team games, they are simple, reliable and get the job done. I have also often said that there is a similarity, with some of these basic team challenges that involve more imagination that kit, to children getting endless fun and pleasure playing with a couple of old cardboard boxes long after the expensive plastic toys that they contained have broken. We like to think of it as substance over style. Without the confusion of style, it is possible to get straight to the nub of the matter. These classic games are perfect vehicles for a facilitator to observe how a team tackles the challenge.

The facilitator will then discuss with the team how they thought they performed and what they would do differently, how they could improve their team performance. The facilitator's role is to facilitate the teams perceptions as to their performance and provide them with an understanding that can then be applied to the workplace. During most events it important to address only a few issues and not to overwhelm the participants, a few points well made are worth a lot more than a mass of information later forgotten. The benefits that can be obtained from these team building games is in the experiential nature of the games as compared to purely classroom and theoretical information, in the words of a Chinese proverb:

What I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember.