The importance of team building: How can they grow the social fabric of your business?
Successful organizations are made of highly productive and collaborative teams. Decades of research into high performing teams has found that high performing teams are socially sensitive and diverse. Social fabric of an organization also determines the strength of it’s shared values and culture. Therefore, organizations prioritize investing in building strong team relationships and collaborative teams. Team building is one such effort by organizations. Team building has always been touted as an essential activity to build organizational culture, team relationships, and collaborative environment. However, with the pandemic pushing most of the workforce into a remote environment, team building has not remained a priority. As organizations went further into the pandemic and adapted a new normal of working, it was found that teams still need a way to be engaged in remote world.
Team building has started to re-emerge and evolve post pandemic. Pre-pandemic, indoor team building activities were the most common way of growing team relationships and keeping employees engaged. As employees started to return to work post pandemic, organizations found a greater need to keep employees motivated. Hence, new ways of organizing team building activities are being explored. For example, outdoor team building activities in Singapore have become popular with workplace restrictions being eased for organizations to organize team bonding events. Here are a few more reasons why team building activities are crucial to grow the social fabric of your business:
Improves team communication
Team communication is crucial and foremost to the social fabric of an organization. Without effective communication, team members tend to withdraw from social activities and organizational culture. Team silos emerge quickly, and productivity is hampered. Team building activities prevent this as they improve team communication. Activities like ice-breakers enable employees to come out of the initial uneasiness or self-doubts about communicating with their team members. Ice-breakers are also great when teams get together for an activity after a long time. Other fun activities that improve communication are mystery games, escape rooms, scavenger hunts etc.
Forges personal bonds
An organization’s social fabric cannot exist when team members do not connect with each other on a personal level. When relationships are limited to formal communication and emails, culture falls flat, and employees become unengaged. On the contrary, reports indicate that when employees make a friend at work, they are more likely to be engaged at work. Team building activities help employees forge personal bonds and make memorable moments. Movie nights, truth or dare games, virtual lunches, celebrating accomplishments or important milestones together cultivate a sense of togetherness and camaraderie.
Fosters a strong organizational culture
Organizations are made of people and culture cannot exists when people do not interact with one another. A good organizational culture is one in which employees celebrate winning together rather than winning individually. Team building activities foster this sense of togetherness and remind teams of the shared values, morals, and beliefs that make the organizational culture. Organizing team building activities regularly also indicates an organization’s commitment to employee well-being. Some examples of activities that strengthen organizational culture are sharing memories, working on creative projects, trivia games, etc.
Nurtures trust and empathy
Trust and empathy are pivotal to the team relationships. When team members trust each other, they are more willing to collaborate and share ideas. Trust and empathy create a culture when employees can communicate openly and be vocal with feedback. Team building activities enable employees to be more empathetic of each other and nurture trust in the team. These activities help team members explore each other’s strengths and weaknesses both individually and as a team. Some examples of trust building activities are blindfold games, introducing to each other’s family or workspaces in remote teams, truth or dare games etc.
Breaks barriers such as diversity or conflicts
Diversity is always regarded as an essential to high performing teams. However, in the initial stages it could be a barrier to team interactions. When team members do not feel comfortable interacting with their colleagues from a different background, ethnicity, or skills it could be a barrier to building collaborative relationships. Team building activities are great for breaking these barriers and bringing the team together. Also, when teams are experiencing conflict, team building activities can be used as a part of conflict management. Team building activities allow the team to get to know each other without feeling vulnerable or intimidated. They can break barriers and help teams forge relationships. To break down barriers, team building activities that explore different cuisines, cultures, or ethnicities are great.
Team building activities are an essential to building relationships and the social fabric of an organization. Organizations cannot thrive when their teams do not work towards a collective vision. Celebrating success together and having a team camaraderie is the foundation of a collaborative team environment.
