PIHRA Scope - January/February 2008 - (Page 16) Why Waste Your Money on Team By Nick Conner, Vice President, TeamBuilders SOCIAL INTERACTION These are recreational events with little to no insights. They might include corporate olympics, paint ball, or boat building types of activities. They are fun and social, but no epiphanies are going to take place. All three types of programs can be well run with varying degrees of effectiveness. The first two, though, are workshops that can be disappointing if expectations are not met and no positive results have occurred. The management of expectations is crucial to the success of any team development process. Your odds for success increase dramatically when you address five key components. These include the needs assessment, interactive learning, the debrief, action planning and follow up. Building? waste your money on team buiding? The words “team building” trigger instant images for most of us. Climbing walls, outdoor settings, group hugs, and of course the kum ba ya jokes. There are reasons why our past experiences were ineffective and a waste of time and money. Not because the workshop was necessarily bad, but because nothing changed when the group went back to work. The activities and metaphors created by these types of sessions do a wonderful job creating insights, but high-performance team functioning is a discipline. The bad reputation comes from the inability to turn these insights into applications. So how does one invest time and money in these programs and get a positive return? There are basically three opportunities for using “team” types of programs. Actually there are probably more, but here are the most consistent trends: Why THE NEEDS ASSESSMENT Basically, putting the custom back into customer. Every organization’s culture is different and so are its needs. So, how do we customize a program to get the largest return on investment? For this we reference Stephen Covey and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, specifically by “beginning with the end in mind.” Once the information on the dynamics of the group are understood, which could include organizational or industry changes, specific interpersonal issues, or recent events that have impacted this group, then we can start painting the picture of what an absolutely successful program really looks like. What are participants walking away with? What behavior or process changes will take place? Visualize success…what does it look like? Basically, “begin with the end in mind.” I have a friend who owns Sandler Sales Institute in Tampa, Fla. and he describes this as “defining the pain.” Why have you come to us today? CONFERENCE WORKSHOPS These sessions are designed to support the concepts and themes for a specific conference. This may include a content speaker and interactive learning sessions that usually last between four and eight hours in length. Or participants may be in breakout sessions for a few days and it’s nice to have a fun, yet tangible release. PERFORMANCE DEVELOPMENT These are the roll-up-your-sleeves, let’s-get-at-the-issues-of-our-organization types of programs. The need may be the result of change, or just dysfunctional team behavior. Measurement and assessment, as well as action planning, in conjunction with interactive learning work best. Sessions can be four hours to four days. FEATURE 16 PIHRAScope January/February 2008
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