My team chose to go that way because it’s basically skill-neutral. You have to be careful, though, you don’t want to just sign up for Habitat for Humanity. There’s always one employee who’s nursing an injury or has a disability and you can’t pick an activity that excludes someone (like having a steak luncheon when you know you have vegetarians on staff) if your purpose is team building. I know that seems obvious and logical, but I am never surprised at the lack of logic and reason within the ranks of management. Lotta ass covering and maneuvering though.
I also want to make a note that all of my teambuilder retreats were optional (and there were truly no repercussions – I did not give a shit if you attended or not), held offsite, and were during business hours. Everyone got paid. A couple times, we just had a potluck picnic at a local park. Who doesn’t want to pull a day’s pay for playing in the park eating grilled food and hanging out?
I think the most important aspect of making a teambuilder as painless as possible for the employees is giving the employees some control over the choices-- and giving them real choices. My team didn’t need a boot-camp style obstacle course to learn how to communicate with each other better; all they needed was a couple hours of no-pressure no deadlines in which to just get to know each other a little better. After the retreats, I always had really productive teams because they bonded over planning, and choosing, and executing their own teambuilder. All I did, really, was give them permission to do it and authorized company funds to cover lunch.
I’ve done good team building and bad team building. I do enjoy (although I know not everyone does) the Myers Briggs sort of team building exercises when they are well facilitated to help everyone understand everyone else - not exercises in putting others down. I wouldn’t like mandatory team building or near mandatory team building outside of business hours - but when that’s been part of the corporate culture, I haven’t taken the job (I’ve been offered jobs where that’s the corporate culture - never ended up at one).
I’ve managed, and I’ve never worked for a company where I have had the choice between “team building” or giving people a raise or a bonus - those have always been three different pools of money to spend. So I can not spend the money and take everyone bowling - and not check that thing off on the “engage in at least one team building exercise with your team” on my performance review if that is part of the metric - or I can take everyone bowling (or try and find something better, bowling is always surprisingly popular though - I don’t like to bowl, but apparently, a lot of people think its a good time).
Sometimes managers take a lot of time and energy to come up with team building activities that fit the group as a whole and that everyone will enjoy. My husband took a group of geeky IT people to see The Two Towers or something on opening day - they all loved it. But it was like six people he knew well enough to know that it had been a huge topic of conversation for everyone and something everyone wanted to do.
Doing that sort of crap just means I have that much more real, productive work to do later–who can enjoy a stupid picnic when you know that tomorrow, you have two days of work to do instead of just one. And if I choose to not participate, I have to pick up the slack for my coworkers who decide to take the day off and fart around while there’s real work to be done.
Really–it’s not that hard: recognize my efforts and pay me. Or give me time off with pay. Or leave me alone and let me do my job.
A couple of details that I’d mention if one of my staff mentioned concerns like this:
We always chose a date during our slowest time of the year and structured the deadlines (it was a desktop publishing department) so that nobody had anything due on the day of or day after the retreat.
Should you choose not to participate, that is totally cool. Our department did not require phone coverage and the work was assigned by employee. Anyone staying behind would only have to do their own work. Definitely no doing other people’s work. I didn’t want anyone punished for not participating.
And of course, while the boss was away, I couldn’t monitor who spent the day on SDMB or Facebook.
But really, I’m with ya. I’d rather spend a little bonus or take a day off myself. I don’t like pretending to like my coworkers…
Going to see “The Two Towers” is something I’d classify as an event, not team building. Events are good, in that they usually consist of a fun activity done on company time paid for by company money, and feel like you’re playing hooky. No facilitators, definitely not mandatory, and few people object. I doubt even Dilbert would object to seeing a movie on work time.
regardless of the efficacy of ‘team-building excercises’ if you aren’t the boss, then either A) quit, b)go or C) Hi Opal. In every job there are odious tasks which we don’t want to do. That is why we call it ‘work’ and not ‘fun.’ As a random aside, if your boss is considering a team building exercise…recommend paintball. Its a great excuse to relieve some stress and irritation at your coworkers.
We did find a silver lining – we built our team spirit by banding together against a common enemy: the “fun” activities organizers. As for respecting authority, pfft, they weren’t my bosses, and respect has to be earned. What they were was a bunch of twerps employed by another bullshit psychobabble team-building company, come to demonstrate how a contrived group activity to paint a communal mural from memory and glimpses of the desired result would make us better analysts and software developers. :rolleyes:
Quite apropos… I happen to be acrophobic – climbing walls was a challenge for me, and I never did make it over the elevated balance beam (safely harnessed and all, but 8 meters up and my brain just went wibble :eek: )
But I take your point completely – fortunately I worked with people that I was comfortable enough around that I didn’t mind them see me wimp out on the balance beam – I can easily imagine some people would not desire that… as well as those who just couldn’t physically take part. (There were a lot of exhausted, pasty faced, overweight and under-fit IT desk jockeys after the orienteering over rugged country, I remember that).
I have been on few non-company sanctioned employee-initiated team building exerices were the boss’s effigy was tortured and destroyed. Come to think of it, those are the only team building exercies I have ever been involved with that actually improved morale (at least until our buzz wore off).
We’ve only had one team-building exercise so far at my current job since I hired in. We all went over to our supervisor’s house, had a bonfire, got piss drunk, and listened to 80’s metal on his extremely large sound system. Team-building is awesome!
Ack. I’ve not had the good fortune to see the Fish movie, but I’m immediately reminded of an arrogant prick of a manger from years past, who on coming in to take over a department that was functioning well and had been adapting to changing circumstances, personnel, projects, and policies on a regular basis – it had got to the point where we joked that “change” was our core business – and had the unmitigated gall to distribute copies of Who Moved My Cheese? and criticize anyone who didn’t wholehearted embrace its patronizing “wisdom” with every possible appendage. Fucking asshole! :mad:
Ah yes, the “My team, my rules” new Supervisor game. Just before I was fired from the University, I got a new supervisor who came in and demanded that I do things contrary to established policy - and screamed “INSUBORDINATION!!!” every time I informed him of Policy or dared to contradict something he said.
One of the very few people on this Earth who I hope dies a slow and painful death. The man proved, in a few short weeks, to be everything I despise in Humanity in general and in specific, people in positions of power.
I hope it’s not off-topic to quote this comment of yours from the original thread. Look, either you’re whooshing everyone here or you’re severely socially retarded.
I have never, ever seen an optional team building exercise.
My opinion is that if it is in work time then whatever. I still get paid. I may hate it but it is just a one off. I’ll live. On the other hand, if it is outside of work time, especially the whole weekend away thing where you are effectively at work for a weekend, getting back late sunday, then it can genuinely fuck off.
I once got kidnapped for a weekend away teambuilding, staying in a hotel just outside Stockholm. The hotel was closer to my apartment than the office was. Words fail me.
