Is your team building activity building relationships?

Playing games, eating out or picnic in the park is not exactly team building, you are missing out a lot if you are only doing those.

Building relationships is the goal of team building. It is a feeling of camaraderie among your team members. Occasional team hangouts will help facilitate conversations but building relationships need a deeper level of effort from you as a manager.

Here are two recommendations that will help you up-level your team building game.

Projects with tight deadlines

Navy seals are known for their camaraderie.

When the task upfront takes every single person to accomplish the goal together, it sets the stage. As a manager your next task is to stimulate an environment where people help each other. Pause milestones to regroup everyone on the same track that needs more effort and celebrate it as a team accomplishment. Recall these ‘war’ stories in future conversations.

Seeing the culture of helping each other will snowball over time and build mutual trust among your team.

Bring out the vulnerability with a no agenda meeting

Teams start with brownbag sessions to nurture team building. Soon it becomes a stressful show and tell meeting.

I deliberately maintain a recurring no agenda meeting for my team. Talk to them about problems, share your vulnerable self, seek advice. This will help other members do the same. It would feel awkward initially, but over time people would start coming to that meeting as a form of therapy and a safe space to share how they feel and feel empowered.

Add these to your team building process and see the acceleration in the outcomes