My Vice President has asked me to schedule a day for his leadership team to spend together hiking in the woods. He thinks this will be a good team building activity. Most of the people on this team are not “fun” types. How do I accommodate his request and make the day valuable to everyone?
The Team Doc Says…
The key to successful experiential team building is to begin with the end. What does your Vice President want to see as a result of the day’s “work?” This will be the most important part of your team building design. Use care in finding out the answer to this question.
- Determine clear-cut objectives that you can wrap the day around. Develop lessons throughout the day that will apply back at work. Effective debrief is the key to success in this type of situation. During the session, refer frequently to “how is this similar to what happens in our day-to-day activities?”
-
Make sure the lesson lasts more than a day. Create some type of report that goes to the participants as a follow up after the day together — perhaps two weeks. Include the lessons learned during the “day in the woods” in regular work conversation, such as “Remember when we climbed that mountain? This situation is similar…”
What do you think reader? Please leave a comment.
