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Team Building Activities

If you are looking for Team Building Activities that will result in the development of a high performing team and don’t know where to start what do you do? Well, you might ask Google and like so many of life’s other questions, Google has the answer and it surprised even them as explained in a recent HRM Canada 

After two years of research and hundreds of interviews, Google discovered that of the multitude of Team Building Activities out there, no single one provided the magic bullet they were looking for to put together the best team possible. Many HR professionals spend a lot of time and energy developing Team Building Activities that would group individuals with complementary skills together to maximize that team’s effectiveness.

It turns out that this kind of thinking is all wrong and many HR professionals and managers are starting to learn that the best kind of Team Building Activities focuses more on the human side of things. Relationship building, fostering trust and collaboration and establishing a culture where people care about each other and the work they do makes for a much better recipe for success than simply looking at the experience and background folks bring to the table.

This revelation was great for us at Summit to hear…our team building activities focus on creating experiences where people can get to know each other better so that relationships can grow, teams can flourish and participants can have some of those “aha” moments that can be catalysts towards high performance.

This discovery was something that Summit President Scott Kress talks about in his keynote and book, both entitled “Learning in Thin Air.” Scott has climbed mountains all over the world and has been largely successful. There was one expedition however where the team didn’t make it to the Summit despite all of them possessing excellent credentials. The reason? Little collaboration, lack of trust and not sharing a common goal. That experience did provide a great learning experience for him though and as a result, future climbs featured some team building activities with his crew that ultimately laid the foundation that would result in standing atop the world’s highest peak – Mount Everest.

So, if you’re still looking for that perfect team building activity, take Google’s advice and focus on things like how your team interacts, how work is structured and how your people view their contributions to the organization. Just like Google’s analysts, the results might surprise you!