Team building events are helpful in almost every type of business, but they are especially important in the event industry. Organising or hosting an event takes planning, coordination, hard work, motivation and – above all – an amazing team.
Coincidentally, team-building events are great for promoting organisational and planning skills, improving team member coordination and motivation, and helping you develop an amazing team!
There are hundreds of different types of team-building events and activities that can be looked into, but broadly, they are excellent at promoting one of the following objectives:
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- Trust building / Team bonding exercises
- Problem-solving exercises
- Planning exercises
- Communication exercises
So any team-building event ideas that you want to hold will ideally involve activities that are promoting skill-sets that fall into one of these categories.
The aims of team-building events are, of course, development, learning and growth, in a safe, fun environment.
Anyone looking to improve teamwork in event management, then, will immediately recognise the many benefits of running team-building events, because a team that grows and works better together can create some truly outstanding results.
So if you are looking to improve your team building in the event industry, here are five top tips for you to consider while planning your activities.
1. Be inclusive
Why is teamwork important in event management?
The clue is in the name – ‘Team’.
A team is a cohesive group of people coming together with a common purpose or goal. They understand how to work together, pooling strengths and compensating for each others’ weaknesses.
So be inclusive in your team and your team-building exercises. No one is perfect – and that’s fine. What your team needs to learn is to recognise the weaker areas in others and help – and recognise the weaker areas in their own skills and allow others to help (sometimes the harder task).
Trust building and team bonding exercises are excellent for developing these skills and are often the first step in people realising they can’t ‘do it all’ themselves.
Delegation and sharing are part of effective working – as is trusting each team member to do their part reliably.
For event management, these skills are crucial.
So for team-building events – and in real-world work – always be inclusive.
For team-building exercises, it’s important to consider everyone’s physical and social skills and abilities too – not everyone views exercises like this in the same way.
Take these into account, but that doesn’t mean solving all the issues when you plan for a team-building event – sometimes, letting the team solve some of the challenges you have is as important as the exercise itself.
2. Be meaningful
As you plan your team-building event, make sure that every exercise, every task, has a meaningful lesson.
There are hundreds of resources online for company event ideas for employees, and thousands of team-building event suggestions, so pick and choose ones that are meaningful to your team and will pull out skills and experiences that will benefit them (and in turn, your business).
You know your team better than anyone, so take time over this and get the most out of your team-building event.
3. Be open
Depending on the type of team-building event that you plan, be open to changes, developments and new ideas as they arise.
The point of experiences such as these is to get the team to work and learn together, so leave plenty of space for creativity and for things to develop in a different direction to the one you originally planned. If this happens then guess what? You’re having a successful event!
In other words, don’t micromanage! If you are running an exercise or some kind of challenge, make sure your team clearly understands the objectives and circumstances of the exercise, light the touch paper, and then stand well back and see what transpires.
4. Be Fun
Generally, team-building events should be fun!
Challenging – yes, inspirational – yes, educational – yes, incorporate difficult circumstances – yes again. But they shouldn’t be frustrating, annoying or even boring!
Keeping things fun keeps people engaged. And when people have fun, they are more energised, more enthusiastic and learn more while they are at it!
A part of being fun is not forcing people to take part – don’t put undue pressure on employees to get involved; if they are forced into it, it certainly won’t be fun for them.
Anyone not keen can be asked to attend, but to only take part as much as they want to (be inclusive, remember?). Circumstances like this can often be a learning experience in itself, as the others in the team learn to deal with and accept the ‘outlier’ who doesn’t want to take part as enthusiastically as they do.
And the individual themselves, if allowed to participate at a level they feel comfortable, will more often than not be drawn in further anyway – at a pace they are OK with – and this itself is an educational moment for them. These situations are a learning experience for everyone involved.
Also – sometimes, just do something fun! A team-building event can be a trip to a theme park, a good meal out, or, in fact, anything. Simply doing stuff together is a bonding experience.
Work social event ideas are limitless – and all are constructive ways of team building / team bonding – so go and enjoy yourself once in a while!
5. Be constructive
After the event is over, take time to reflect and review with the team.
Have a debriefing session, and ask them what they learned from the event. Criticism from you is OK if it is constructive, but far better to draw out from your team when they feel they got out of the event.
And be prepared to receive some criticism yourself! It’s a learning experience for you too!
Of course – if the event was for bonding (and a bit of fun) then you may not need to ‘debrief’ – but you’d be surprised how useful it can still be, even if it seems unnecessary at first.
Conclusion
Team building in the event industry is a great way to improve the efficiency and creativity of your team – and build a group of people around you who will knock it out of the park each and every time.
As corporate event ideas go, team-building exercises are always a winner – just don’t make them all work-oriented.
Have some work social event ideas up your sleeve too. There are plenty of company event ideas for employees, so do a bit of research, a bit of planning, and create an event for your team that can reward and develop them at the same time!
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