Management and teambuilding Motivate us!

Management and teambuilding

Definition:

'Team Building: optimizing work in a company!' or even 'Boost team cohesion with Team Building'. So many hooks around this theme can not be read!

In recent years, 'Team Building' - literally team building, but it should be read team cohesion - has been a solution put in place to consolidate the cohesion of a group of employees. Is it a necessity for the company? What advantages can she derive from it? Is it just a fad? Concretely, what is a 'Team Building'? Is it aimed only at Management?

Goal :

Improving the functioning of a team, strengthening the links within a group of collaborators, having a team that 'functions well' has become an economic necessity for companies in an economic context of great competition. These are the main collective challenges of this concept which appeared some thirty years ago. But beyond the group, this notion can also prove useful at the individual level, in order, for example, to improve one's own communication, increase one's motivation, gain self-confidence. This personal enrichment will be beneficial to the group, each person putting themselves at the service of the collective.

How does it work?

The Team Building exercise consists of planning and carrying out mainly fun activities intended to develop or create skills aimed at group cohesion.

Generally, it is organized around three main axes. Initially, role plays are organized, play workshops conducted collectively to analyze the dysfunctions or blockages that will appear during the exercises. Then comes the time for sharing and listening; everyone exposes their points of view as to possible blockages and other uncomfortable situations, their experiences, their doubts, but also their expectations. The goal is to speak and listen actively without judging. Then comes what is called openness, this moment when everyone can discover or highlight a potential, a talent hitherto more or less dormant. It is a question here of surprising, jostling, destabilizing to push the collective to think differently, even to innovate.

Additional rules

A determining point during a Team Building session is to make participants lose their bearings. In order to manage conflicts, they will be taken to places far from their daily environment, choosing activities that break with their habits. It could be sporting or cultural activities, such as rafting, tree climbing, discovery of oenology, development of a 'Top Chef' menu. To strengthen the group spirit, we will choose the acquisition of a new skill ignored by each participant, stereotomy for example.

To better understand the mission of each and give meaning to the collective, we will choose role plays. Treasure hunts will strengthen group cohesion and collective motivation with a common goal. To reduce stress and channel energy, we will rely on the discovery of a new culture, especially within multinational companies. Or even make videos on a product manufactured or sold by the company in order to bring out the spirit of the company.

Is it effective?

How to measure the effectiveness of Team Building activities? What could be the return on investment? We know how to assess, determine with certainty, using a measuring instrument, the volume, surface area, quantity, temperature of something. When it comes to assessing the importance, magnitude or quality of something, the matter becomes more complex. In the framework which interests us, it would be advisable to set objectives to assess the results. Team Building is an act of management: the setting of objectives for this Team Building will be solely the business of the manager. The more precise the objective, the less difficult it will be to measure it. Specialized companies have batteries of questionnaires intended for employees and measure by comparison on the basis of very large panels the different degrees of commitment for example, but comparison is not right. However, there are relatively reliable data. INSEE tells us that more than half of employees resign for lack of interest in their work, and that demotivation is an important factor. We also know that employees who are happy in their work are more productive from 10 to 12 % and that, on the contrary, the cost of a departure and a recruitment amounts to 2 years of salary. We can therefore understand the motivation of companies to retain high-performance employees.

Collective intelligence:

We can deduce that the retention of talent is therefore a major objective that Team Building can help achieve. But do these experiences really strengthen the cohesion of the group? Certainly, but don't the effects last as long as the event takes place? Once this has passed, individuals return to their habits. The major problem lies in the permanence of the results. According to Peter Senge, professor at MIT and specialist in organizations, however, we must persevere because “The sharing of experiences and collaboration between individuals are the key to creativity and progress. Collective intelligence is built in shared action. "