Definitions of teambuilding

We're constantly annoyed by people's definition of 'Teambuilding'. There appears to be such a huge number of viewpoints as to what a teambuild seriously is. Many people will call the boss sitting in an open plan workplace randomly spewing his wisdom as a teambuild, a couple of drinks after work with some colleagues on a Friday evening as a teambuild, the organization paying for an yearly ten-pin bowling evening gets justified as being a teambuild or just a sponsored braai or barbeque outside the back warehouse on a Friday afternoon gains the label of a teambuild. The problem is, far too often these gatherings are anything but a teambuild.

Now our research will not aid us a lot. Even as I type this article the several red squiggly lines and wrinkles under the word 'teambuild' is disconcerting. This directory seems to indicate that it's not a word! The dictionary would not display the word teambuilding anyplace. Referring to the internet I gained a little hope when Wikipedia came up having a result, but that was rapidly deflated when the first thing is which you read a warning that "the article does not reflect the encyclopaedic tone of the website". It then proceeds to display a image of a team of females lifting a log as teambuilding for the US armed forces. Seriously!

So how do we define teambuilding? Well it really is about individuals getting back to the people that they work with and realizing that they are really also human, they also have a life and interests and they are possibly not as bad as we imagine them to generally be when we cuss and deride them for adding to our workload. Teambuilding is about taking a breath and putting a team in an environment to refresh themselves and realize that they require the other members to be able to succeed, and that they themselves are needed and valued by the rest of the team. It is about treating everyone with respect and creating an event where everyone can get involved and show their worth, not just the physically fit individuals, or those with a diploma or those who've been there for for a longer period. It's about everybody - No exceptions. Teambuilding is about creating a safe haven where people can speak openly about their ideas and frustrations and work out how to make their department more effective. The debriefs in a outcomes based teambuilding day are about allowing everyone on a team the opportunity to share their thoughts on what could be done to get the job done smarter. A teambuild is about making more friends.

It has been identified that the right method to accomplish this is though a fun environment, but fun is only one of the deciding factors. There has to be a solid point to it and most often this is done by means of a time of reflection after the fun has been had. People must embed the learning that they have just experienced. They must reflect on what worked, what didn't work and what they could do in a different way if they had to do it again. They should take the results of an interactive teambuilding intervention and dissect how they'll take some principles back to the place of work for making it a better place. Altered attitudes and positive changes in the team are made this manner.

The M.D. of Movers & Shakers, a premier teambuilding company in South Africa, says "We frankly do not care that among the words in our name is not defined and we'll go about sharing our definition of what we take into account to be one of the most critically needed interventions in today's corporate world. They want us to name it "Team Building", or "Team-Building", but we need to force the dictionaries to acknowledge this term - "Teambuilding"".

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