Why Your Teambuilding Results Don't Stick (and How to Fix It!)

Hey, hey, hey! Hello everyone. Bonjour tout le monde. I'm very happy to be with you here today to talk about why your team building results don't stick and how to fix it. I'm Claire Hayek, founder and CEO of MSP Team Building, and as well as a team leadership expert. And I'll be your host today. Some of you may know me. Some of you may not. For those of you that don't know me, well, nice to meet you. And if you don't know me, then you don't know that I'm very, very high on interactivity, using the chat, commenting, answering questions, getting feedback.

So this is really important in order to make this fun, right?

We have about 30 minutes. This is gonna fly by, I promise you. And so Today, what are we doing? I specifically wanted to take the time to talk about why team building activities often fail. I hate to admit it. I mean, I'm the CEO of a team building company, team training, team development company, a team leadership company. And I'm saying this, right? It sounds odd, but it's the truth. Basically, what I really wanted to share with you is How to work with team building in order to maximize your return on investment and avoid those yo-yo effects when it comes to team building. Oh, we got something going on. Let's, you know, we need a motivation boost. Let's do a team building. We need people to get to know each other.

Let's do a team building.

Of course, that's great. That's great. But it's reactive. It's not proactive. But I'm going to get into that later to tell you why reactive team building is not ideal and why often it's not sustainable, right? So, this is what we're going to be talking about in a nutshell. We're going to also be talking about— I'll be sending you polls so you could let me know what you think about certain questions I'll be throwing at you. I'm also going to do a Q&A. So, if you want to just share your questions as we go, I'll look at that at the end. And I'm always curious to know where you're all joining from today. So please do share it in the chat and I'll be looking at that in a second to see where you're all coming from. Well, I'm in Montreal, specifically in Lorraine. We actually moved here when COVID hit, but I was a very Montrealer before. I used to live in NDG. So if anybody knows the area, please do put it in the chat. Would love to, would love to, uh, to see where you're joining us from today. And, uh, but anyway, let me just, uh, keep going here. So, you know, again, we're very short on time and this is gonna fly by, I promise you. Um, all right, so what is the core issue? Why, um, Team building is important. And why do they fail?

Okay.

So obviously, team building is essential. We need people to connect. We need people to collaborate better. We need people to communicate better. We need people to have a sense of belonging to the organization. I mean, the list goes on. Team building attracts talent, helps with the retention, helps with communication, etc., etc., etc. However, Why do they fail sometimes? It's because they're not addressing the core issue. And when I'm talking about core issue, it depends. It depends on what your team is going through, what your organization is going through, what's happening in your day-to-day, right? So, it could be poor communication, low morale, misaligned goals, low engagement, mental health and well-being is suffering because it's a highly stressful environment.

Right?

So, before I actually tell you about this a bit more and what research says, let me ask you a question. And let me know what you think.

Okay?

Have you noticed that your team building activities often don't lead to lasting improvements? Yes or no? That's it. Yes or no? Just let me know what is really the topo, like we say in French, the actual situation right now and what you've done in the past.

If you've done something recently with team building.

And if you think that these team building activities that you've invested in, they had an impact, a long-term impact on your team. And if they did, great. And if they don't, please say yes or no.

All right.

So, here's the thing. The reasons why most of the time these team building activities fail. And when I say fail, fail in the sustainable effect over time.

Okay?

They will always give a boost. They will always give a boost in motivation. We see that often. Everybody's happy. Everybody's connected. People got to know each other. We build those connections. And then, of course, over time, that boost kind of like slides back down to maybe frustration, poor communication, low engagement, low morale. And the reason is that team building is not going to save core issues in an organization. Teambuilding will help, will help kind of boost motivation and boost it. But it's temporary unless it's done in a very strategic manner. So again, it fails because it's reactive as opposed to proactive. It gives this temporary boost. And we often end up in a yo-yo effect. So, we give a boost and then the day-to-day happens and then it slides all the way down. And then it goes back up because we're doing something else, and so on and so forth. Okay, so again, these things, um, these activities are great investments, but capitalizing on these investments is very important. Otherwise, it's going to slide down, right? So what we want and how to correct this is that we want to give it a boost and then maintain Give it another boost, maintain, give it another boost, maintain, right? We want to build on these activities, build on these experiences, and reinforce team ties, reinforce the importance of mental health and well-being, reinforce good communication, practice some more collaboration, so on and so forth. So, bottom line is Effective team building is building a solid foundation of trust, collaboration, good communication, and purpose. Okay, so I think the keyword here is solid. And the other keyword is foundation. So solid foundation is your 2 keywords here. And in any experience and anything going on at the workplace, for it to to be effective. Okay. So I'm going to share with you some research on the subject actually. This is from Harvard Business Review. It actually proves, and they did a whole study on this issue, on basically building those strong foundations. And it actually proved that it actually works. Building and focusing on these strong foundations will build trust, with collaboration and team success. So, here's some interesting numbers. Okay, according to this HBR, Harvard Business Review, high-trust organizations, okay, listen up, experience 74% less stress, 106% more energy at work, and 50% higher productivity compared to low-trust organizations.

Okay.

So those solid foundations, trust is a main one. So trust is for open and honest communication. You need to encourage risk-taking, creativity, collaboration, leading at a high level of innovation as well within a team. So there's also other research that from the Center for Creative Leadership, it emphasizes that trust is essential for breaking down silos, fostering collaboration, and driving engagement. What I'm saying here is not rocket science. Okay, I think you all know this. I don't want to go, oh my God, this is a big aha moment. We all know establishing trust, establishing good lines of communication, and reinforcing collaboration is a very important thing when it comes to team building, team synergy, team cohesion, building those relationships at work with our colleagues. Feeling that we're part of something bigger, feeling that we're part of a family, although we're not family family. But you know what I mean?

Like having that community, right?

And that sense of belonging, feeling that, you know what? This organization cares for me and I can speak my mind. And I trust that they will listen to me. And I trust that I can speak my mind that this is a safe environment. So the key here is to prioritize activities, team building activities that promote these solid foundations. Okay. But the idea is doing that, but also maintaining it. Right? So not doing a team building activity and then all of a sudden we drop the ball. Then now there's no trust, no collaboration, no communication. All in the sustainable initiatives and in the sustainable— the consistency of the message basically of the organization and the culture. So, prioritize these activities that build the trust, that build its communication, that promote collaboration and open dialogue. Then, leaders can magically I mean, this is so simple. But leaders can this way create a supportive working environment that boosts productivity and innovation. And then, when you're investing in team building activities to get these little boosts every now and again, it actually builds on what you're already doing internally. All right. So, you could start off by team building activity and then maintain it. Internally with initiatives, etc. And then keep going. You know, get another team building activity in, etc., etc. Now, of course, this is all— it depends on budget, time, etc. But there's so many ways to do this in a sustainable manner that really works without this costing you of fortune. And I will be talking about that on July 10th. That's next Wednesday, same time, 11:30. I'm going to be tackling the subject on how to— how basically what kind of team building activities you can do and how to actually keep it going and have that sustainable effect on trust, collaboration, communication, etc., on a budget. Or even little to no budget sometimes, believe it or not. All right, so let me just check the comments here.

Um, okay, so, um, if anybody here with me joining, uh, please do something in the chat just to make sure that this is working.

All right, okay, so, um, let me ask you this now.

Let's go on to the second question. Do you believe that building a strong foundation based on collaboration, whatever you need to build, can lead to more sustainable team success? Again, yes or no. Okay. I get a feeling there's probably going to be a lot of replays of this video. So, I'm going to keep going.

And I want to share with you some suggestions on what you could do because it's great to tell you, oh yeah, you need to keep it up and you need to do things internally and you need to instill that trust and collaboration, etc. However, how do I do this, Claire?

I don't have time, the budget, or I'm not good at facilitating. I'm not good at organizing things. I do not. I cannot take this on. I totally understand. And these are very, very legitimate arguments about this.

So what I'm going to do, I'm going to share with you about— I have about 3 little suggestions of how you can easily do this while you're just going about your work. Nothing. You're not like stopping and organizing something big here.

Okay. So, in order to encourage and trust, okay, feedback sessions. So, what does that mean?

Carve some time in your busy schedule, okay, to plan regular feedback sessions where your team members can give and receive constructive feedback in a safe and supportive environment. This really helps in building trust and it's great for continuous improvement. So, of course, there's a way to do this. And you know, you can do it in a circle. You can do it during your meeting. And usually, the best way to do it is for each person to go around one after the other.

And every person needs to give feedback.

There's no, well, I have no feedback to give.

Everybody needs to dig deep to find some constructive feedback. Now, it could be just reinforcing something or something for improvement or not. Just celebrating something. Okay? So, you give that feedback and then you ask for feedback, to get feedback back. Okay, or you can just go in a circle, everybody gives constructive feedback, and then you identify those that didn't receive any comments or any feedback. Keep track of this, and then you make sure that someone in the room has something to say about these people. Again, if it's not constructive feedback, it's compliment, it's celebrating them, encouraging them, Thank you. This is a great way to get trust and open communication.

Another one is storytelling.

This one is actually a great team building activity that you could do internally, cost nothing. But just, you know, you can do it just before a virtual meeting or you can do it during lunch at work. Or you can do it during a meeting, just before a meeting or after a meeting or halfway through a meeting. So, You kind of break up, especially if it's a long meeting, this really helps kind of get people's attention back and get their engagement. Okay. So the way it works, storytelling is that one person starts a story and each person, one at a time, adds a sentence.

So actually this encourages public speaking, listening, Creativity, collaboration.

You really practice on improving emotional intelligence as a team. You're not just thinking ahead. You have to listen to what your colleague is saying before you actually come up with the next sentence. You see what I mean? So this is what this one is all about. So it's called group storytelling. And sometimes we do that with one word. And that's even harder. You know, you can put them in smaller groups, maybe like 5 or 6 people. And then it's basically improv storytelling where each person goes in a group and they come up with a story. Okay. And the way it works is that, you know, one person says a word and everyone Continues, so it can go in so many different directions. Now, the sentence one is better when it's a whole group, your whole team, whether it's like 20, 30 people in the room, or then there's a bit more context. It's a bit more under control as opposed to one word because it goes in different directions. So that's group storytelling. I'm just glad to be with you today. Walking meetings, believe it or not, help. And all it is is that you're walking outside or in the office, if you have a big office, of course, and you're doing your meeting together. Of course, you can't be 50 people doing this, but if it's a small team, this one is a great one.

Because not only it encourages well-being and exercise, but it's not about sprinting, right?

We're just walking and talking. But what that does is when we're walking and we're engaging our body, it stimulates creativity and makes conversation flow easier, more open. So this is great, great for communication. Now, how many of you have heard of these activities here? If you're listening to this as a replay, please do put it in the comment.

I always go back to these, basically these chats, because I'm very interested to know. What people think and what they've shared.

So please do put it in the chat if this is a replay for you. I do realize that conducting LinkedIn Lives in July and August might not get a lot of attendance, but my philosophy with that is that even if you're not here and If I can provide and add value to you and your team, and you know you can rely on Claire, you can go on my LinkedIn anytime and look at the replays of all the subjects, all the events that I've addressed, then you know you can go back to these and get a tip or two to help you. Okay, so the idea is Provide to serve you guys, to serve you all, serve you in the best way possible, help your team work better, you manage your team better. Okay, so this is the key of this. And of course, when you are here, this is a bonus because I mean, it's so much more fun when it's interactive, right? All right, about that. Geez, it's I have like 10 minutes left. So what can we do, okay, in order to basically have a sustainable effect on team building and have a sustainable transformation? Okay.

Okay, here is first to look at what are your needs.

Each team is different.

It's not the same. Okay, some teams have probably lack communication problems, although a lot have communication problems from what we've studied, what we've seen so far.

But that's not a bad thing. It's just like, it's human. Right? Sometimes we have very clear communication. Sometimes we have trouble because we lack soft skills, or we're not comfortable, or you know it all has to do with who we are, our past, present, and where we're heading. Focus our brain, our body neuroscience does a lot of that, but. The point is, it depends on each team what your core issue is right now at this point.

And actually, speaking of which, let me throw another question here.

Which core issue do you think is most prevalent in your team?

I put in some examples here: poor communication, low morale, low engagement, mental health and wellbeing.

Maybe collaboration. And again, it all depends on each team. But the idea is, the way to start with this is to first assess what is going on. What do you need to focus on?

So you list those out.

Then you build this strategy around that need in order to create that effective team. And you put those The yo-yo effect is that you do it, that is great, and then it slowly slides back.

Just, it's not sustainable.

It's a matter of time before we give up. The idea of building strategy is that when you do the team building, spend a lot of money, you have a budget, this is great, this is working, people like each other, They're connecting with each other, then what happens is— Don't let it drop. Don't let it go. You don't do a team building activity every 4 months, 6 months. Just a little initiative later, or do a walking meeting, or do a feedback session, or you do a little lunch out. That's a lot to learn.

Just keep the team together.

Keep going, right? So, what that does, it either maintains the morale, maybe dip a bit, but it maintains it. Then, we want to give it another boost, right? So, and this is how we build. Again, this is how we do it. So, the idea here is first to identify What is your core issue or problem? Typically, what very honest with you is pure poor communication, morale engagement, and highly stressful deadlines, no time, feeling overwhelmed. Okay, so when we look at that, then.

Usually what we do, okay, we'll work with our clients and, hey, here's what's going on.

And then you align it with what's happening throughout the year at the company. So, I can't believe it. All right. So, figure out what you're doing here. This business year.

So you have new missions, you have initiatives coming up, you need buy-in for a certain project, you have a very strict or ambitious sales goal, you are expanding.

I mean, every company, organization has a plan throughout the year and your activities Knowing that, for instance, I don't know, in September it's going to be very high, so, you know, relaxed.

But don't wait till December to do something else.

You know, September they come back, welcome them with great team activity team. sense of belonging activity. And then, you know, keep it going, initiatives throughout. When you know that, that, you know, it's a very high stressful moment, you bring in some conferences, you do conferences on wellbeing, or you do virtual 15-20 minute wellness breaks. I mean, the list goes on, right? I don't have time to go into detail, but just to give you an idea how that works. And then we're good to go. So what we're doing, we're maintaining. You need to listen. You need to be aware of what's happening in the environment. As a leader, you really need to be proactive of that, especially the HR people that are, you know, people in culture. You need to be in tune with them. And then you inject these activities throughout so you don't drop the ball. When you do end up doing your December party, holidays party. Now we're here and we're going there. So you're consistently leveraging every single investment that you're doing in your people, whether it's training, whether it's an activity, whether it's an activity that boosts communication, collaboration, or mental health. Okay. So again, so have your strategy.

lined out 2, 3 strategies.

I'm going to do these for open dialogue, improve communication, regular check-ins and feedback sessions. Now I'm going to be—

I want to boost morale. So let's do some recognition and celebrate achievement activity.

And, and, you know, Program or that constructive feedback and make it more about celebration. We want to align people and so they're more collaborative with, you know, our goal setting for the year.

So focus on team workshops that do just that, that get people to collaborate in a fun transformational experience that has a high impact, that gets the emotion in.

That sticks with people. Again, the body talks to the mind and the mind talks to the body. So stress, stressful situations, it goes both ways and it will affect mental health and then morale and everything just goes downhill after that. So creating those positive experiences that you can feel in your body, you can feel and experience, they have to be highly impactful. They can be just meh experiences. Those give that big boost. And what you're doing is keeping up the morale. They don't have to be highly impactful every week, but they build on that essence and they build on that morale and they build on that connection between people.

That goes a long way.

So it's all about, again, the sustainable approach to team building as opposed to—

Yeah.

Because we have a budget. What are we doing this year? We did this last year. Let's do something else. Team building. I often say we don't team build, we build teams. In order to build your team and build that resilience, that communication, that collaboration, morale, that engagement, that sense of belonging, and so on and so on and so on, it is consistent It's not, but it doesn't have to be big. It could be very, very small, small initiatives, big initiatives, and small initiatives. It needs to be embedded in the team culture and in your organizational culture. Okay. You don't do that, do something big, and then do the opposite or drop the ball on it 2 weeks later. So it's all about consistency, it's all about strategy, and it's all about building those solid foundations. I will be sharing in the comments the study by Harvard Business Review about those solid foundations and that. And before I leave you, I want to share with you here the QR code for the next event. mentioned earlier on is how to maximize team productivity on a budget. Basically, I give you a couple of tips this time, but I'm going to go deeper into how to, you know, what kind of activities you can do with little budget and how you can help your team become more productive. So this is July 10th, same time, 11:30 PST. Thank you.

It's on Wednesday, and I will also share in the comments.

Sorry, post-conference, so you can register RSVP. Please show up. I'd love to see you and chat with you. And I wish you a great rest of the day. We'll see you next week, hopefully. All right, take care.