Team building is a term that you will be coming across so frequently these days, it is kind of a fashion at the moment, some activities that are called team building by its participants or organizers might not be considered team building by the others. So, let’s first clarify what is team building.

As Google states:

Team building:
The action or process of causing a group of people to work together effectively as a team, especially by means of activities and events designed to increase motivation and promote cooperation.

Based on this definition, we could still argue what team building really is and is not. Going out for a beer with your colleagues might and may not increase motivation and promote cooperation.

However, I think it is quite clear there are many kinds of team building – bowling, mystery nights, dinners, laser game…and then some other as firewalking, board-breaking etc.

Which one is the best? One is not better than the other, it is about the outcome you want to achieve. Will a mystery night help your team to cooperate? Yes, indeed. They will have fun, they will have to work as a team.

So, why would anyone choose a firewalking or boar-breaking experience over bowling?

Actually, when we get new clients who choose any of the empowerment activities (board-break, arrow-break, firewalk, glass walk, re-bar bending), we always do ask them what led them to choosing us.

Recently we had a new client in Prague, the Czech Republic and we were asked to run a one day workshop for a team of 4 – a manager and his 3 team members, each one based in a different location in the world working in a newly set-up team of an acquisition department of a company in pharmaceutical industry.

They never heard of us before, we were not recommended to them by anyone, so what really led them to hiring us?

They said they wanted something different from the “common team building”, their desired outcomes for the day were:

• working as a team
• learning how to work together better and understanding each other
• empowerment of individuals and of the team as a whole
• combination of learning, fun and activities
• unforgettable experience
• experiencing something new
  

And when they googled this, we came up and we ticked all the boxes.

Some people also think that empowerment activities have to be done in bigger groups, however they are as powerful when done in small team and for individuals. People get amazing experience breaking boards or arrows, no matter if there is 3 people or 300 people around.

If you want to find out more, discover whether we are the right fit for your company, please get in touch!