Posted by The Catch-all Term
It’s no surprise that pop culture has often parodied team building — delivered poorly. Team building gone bad is the perfect fodder for sitcoms and negative business articles. The term itself spans the range, any human bonding experience, from icing a cake to running rapids can be termed a team building experience.
The success of such measures relies entirely on the delivery. After four decades and 500,000 participants, Venture Up’s human laboratory has given them an edge that keeps clients coming back for more, years and decades later.
Human Bonds
Any human groups that function efficiently have strong relationships. The highest level investment managers can make significant strides to increase trust and reduce conflict among teams by implementing the right steps to build bonds authentically. Often, they turn to leaders outside their borders.
A properly planned and executed team building experience is not only fun, but reinforces the leadership’s commitment to staff.
Effective team building also results in more engaged employees and a stronger corporate culture.
When colleagues get to know each other beyond their job-roles, it builds a bond and gives them a chance to enjoy each other on a personal level.
In order to maximize the you corporate team building experience, there are a few points to keep in mind:
1. Don’t Force the Corporate Stuff
The best team building activities offer something different, something new. You don’t want your team event to be just another company requirement in which employees must participate under strict rules and guidelines. The activities should be organic so team members enjoy relating to each other in new ways, and feel open to express ideas freely, however wild they may be. Corporate jargon doesn’t sell.
2. It’s not the Company Picnic
The company picnic is usually not so much a team building event as it is a celebration of staff and their families. Some people may find them boring if they include only co-workers. Building team relationships requires stimulating staff in creative ways as they work toward problem solving and emotional risk taking. Nobody should solve any puzzle, or win any game at first try. And nobody goes it alone.
3. Bring the Positive Energy to the Office
Everything achieved during a team building exercise can come undone if it is not connected to the workplace. While an activity may have a direct effect, the effect doesn’t last unless the managers and team bring something back — an object, poster, a prop — to reinforce the experience. Anything tangible helps retrieve the memory of how well the team worked and celebrated together away from the office. Now they realize they can work well anywhere, together. Reminder advertising (tangibles) works in corporate training as well as industries because it triggers memories and reinforces the experience.
Venture Up (est. 1983) is the original team building company, helping organizations build trust and collaboration through real-world experience.
© 2025 Venture Up Inc. | ventureup.
