With the words “Team building” we refer to a range of initiatives. These can be events or activities that, promoted in a well structured way, use alternative channels to the traditional frontal “training.” These can than facilitate the interaction of the members of a group with the ultimate goal of developing their skills in teamwork.
Although the team building can be designed in all possible areas, starting with specific sport and the friendship areas to the scholastic field, it is certainly the business world that benefits more from its diffusion and application.
As matter of fact, corporate team building is always more frequently employed to consolidate work groups and make them more close-knit, dynamic and creative in order to better deal with the scenarios dictated by the market and to facilitate the achievement of strategic and commercial goals.
It has been proved that a properly structured and promoted team building intervention, perhaps realized in an innovative context such as the equestrian one, gives important results about the team mood and working state.
Corporate team building purposes
The fundamental goal of the Corporate Team Building is to develop or consolidate the relationship in a group of people, through recreational, educational training, or experiential initiatives that allow the out coming of positive and proactive dynamics aimed to achieve corporate goals. Of course, all of that not forgetting the wellbeing of all the members of the working group.
And when it comes to any social group, the well-being starts from a key element: communication.
This latter needs to be effective and clear, oriented to an appropriate attitude that avoids the triggering of possible negative interferences, such as frustration and stress, which are at the base of the malfunctioning of any working group with consequent repercussions on the performance of the entire company.
The Team Building goes precisely in this direction: First, look for strategies to put them into practice and than exercise the art of communicating effectively. This will allow focus on the importance of the individual to make the gears of the whole group run better.
Team building projects, especially the ones promoted by the employment of the horse, are lead by professional coaches/trainers with specific competences in the management of groups of people and of the job with the noble animal.
The peculiarity of the facilitation due to the horse presence and the context where these projects are promoted (generally equestrian centres or agritourisms) are aspects that are distant from the everyday office work and generate some consequences in the group dynamics. These consequences can lead to a willing to challenge ourselves in order to face and overcome new situations or exercises, (and not only because of the presence of the horse) but interacting with him. Interaction allows the participants to develop new skills and reach aspects and potentialities that were hidden inside or never fully used.
So it is possible to reach themes, such as trust, effective communication, mutual help, emotional intellect and recognizing the value of being different. Also, problem solving, planning, leadership of transversal skills that can make a group of coworkers a cohesive team therefore allowing that team to reach common goals.
Team building also makes our staff faithful members of the corporate mission and vision. This is an aspect not to underestimate because in order to invest well and move forward we must look on our human resources and facilitate the so called “employee retention” which leads to attracting, holding and encouraging the presence of talents inside the group itself.
How does a Team Building event work?
First of all it’s important to underline team building initiatives require some aspects to be effective:
- they need to be projected on the base of the effective need of customer, after the sharing of some general and specific goals, times of execution, presentation of the participants and dynamics of the group that require particular attention
- they need to be promoted in an informal environment, often playful, and far away from routine and corporate frames. They must keep the focus on the highest training and experiential content, so it can provide valid sparks to acquire new skills and competences that can be proposed again by the single participants in different times and contexts of the everyday life and professional environment.
- The frontal components of the teambuilding session must be part of the working program with a briefing moment as an introduction (when the activity will be presented and fitted in the practice), and a conclusive one as a de-briefing (when we can draw a conclusion, do the appropriate observations and transferring what we have learned in the everyday life) in every session of activity.
- They must me programmed to facilitate the encounter, sharing, cooperation, and mutual knowledge to break all the possible wall made of prejudices or misunderstandings between every single participant.
The number of participants may vary: it doesn’t matter if it is a small group (5-12 people for example is a better number for team building activities with horses) or a larger one ( 100+), the number of coaches/trainers must be suitable and proportional to facilitate the well going and realization of the working sessions. Facilitating the sessions also requires directing all the single activities promoted, allowing the participation of all the members and creating a proper relational exchange between the participants.
Realization times in a team building activity depend on the goals that the customer aims to. This also depends on the number of working sessions that, sequentially, will bring the group toward evolution. Following the scheme briefing, going over the activity of the session is important and then finally debriefing the session..
To stay anchored to our team building theme with horses, in general one activity might last from half of a day (minimum), to three full days of work (maximum), often with a recreational moment between one to another when the groups can enjoy some trips to visit the territory, participate to horseback riding excursions or typical food tasting.
The majority of the team building activities is promoted during one working day and it is proposed again in two-three periodic sessions in order to develop a single working group in different aspects and functional areas, or proposing the identical format to new groups of the same company.
One aspect that is considered very important is the “follow-up.” After several weeks from the conclusion of the session, it is important to verify the development of the group dynamics from within and other and more important projects.
The phases of a successful Team Building:
First phase: briefing with the customer
After the first moments when the potential customer present the needs, a shared valuation will be done about a team building project, and if it can respond to the expectations and where it is required, a proposal of intervention.
After the acceptation of the commission, the trainer and the customer start the real job: to examine in depth and define the areas where we need to obtain a change of our associates or co-workers, who are the direct object of the activity.
This is a phase of pure planning and settlement of the general and specific goals that we want to reach, an action hidden “behind the scene” that take place weeks or even months before the activity.
A decisive moment for the success of the activity.
During their preliminary encounter, all the information about the working group members are collected in order to define personalities, characteristics, functioning, predispositions, and those aspects that – for any participant- will be monitored and recorded at every step of the training activity on the field.
At the same time the trainer might suggest some proposal activity that can be realized during the encounter (or the encounters) with the members, following a sequence of exercises/plays subordinated to the themes/goals of the single sessions of work.
Second phase: briefing with the participants
This is the moment when the individuals involved enter the game of the team building intervention. This is the phase that officially opens the training- experiential activity on the field and that, once the goals established with the customer are declared, will lead the whole group to the working sessions.
Third phase: the “de-briefing”
At the end of every single session of work, when every specific situation/play/activity will be presented, such as the respective rules, every participant is invited to give a feedback about his/her own individual experience. They can explain emotions, difficulties, unexpected events, strengths, weaknesses or simple observations that have struck their attention during the just ended “game”.
This is the phase when, under the guidance of the trainer, the sums of the evolution of the exercise are drawn:
- how the activity was approached by every single individual and by the whole group?
- what manners arose approaching the exercise? How the relationships and exchange among participants evolved?
- how was the activity managed in its whole session and in every single moment?
- what kind of results did the activity produce, regardless if the goal was achieved or not?
- what were the factors or variables that produced the final result? How could the game have been managed to improve the performance or reach (in case of failure) the objective?
At the end of the meeting, once the various work sessions scheduled for the team building operation are concluded, all the feedbacks of the participants are summarized and elaborated in order to set the change objectives.
The entire group can therefore produce a simple document that can be considered a small handbook that will outline the guidelines to manage and carry on the change. This is a commitment adapted to individual peculiarities but also focused on the whole group and on the common goals. These goals inflect the everyday practice, as desired by the customer, during the planning phase.
A further following aspect is the restitution of what came to light during the entire activity, including the eventual final elaboration of concerned participants.
The last important aspect is the follow-up: a check in with the customer, after several weeks or months, to evaluate the evolution of the single individuals and evaluate the group as a whole. This follow up with discus desired areas of change and possible improvements. This valuation can tell us how the knowledge and skills acquired in the proposal of team building have led to virtuous behaviours, functioning to the cohesion of the working group and to the need of the corporate as a whole.