Strategic Use of Team Building Activities to Develop Resilience

Teams are in perpetual flux.  Employees leave, new technologies emerge, and government policies change.  These dynamic factors can break team cohesiveness, and impede productive problem-solving.  Resilient teams, however, can maintain their unity, weather these upheavals to overcome challenges—and even find opportunities for growth and success. 

Nurture Deliberately

Effective and resilient teams do not appear through happenstance.  Often, their leaders have a strong grasp of group dynamics. They know that teams are not static entities; teams are in constant development, newly forming, progressively maturing, or coming to an end.  These attentive leaders keep their groups united through ongoing and strategic team-building exercises that nurture all stages of their development.   

Focus on Team Development Stage

A well-known model of group development is Tuckman’s theory of teamwork.  Based on this model, a diverse group of people undergoes five stages to evolve into a high performing team.  Knowing the developmental stage of a group can help leaders adapt their approach to bring members together to accomplish a particular goal or respond to a new challenge.  

Cultivate Awareness

When a team is first forming, members get to know one another, their roles and the tasks of the group.  To help people, such as new hires, get acquainted, leaders should select activities that provide opportunities for members to interact.  

Team building exercises that require interpersonal communication help individuals connect.  They learn about each other’s backgrounds, perspectives and work styles.  This familiarity facilitates professional interactions between colleagues and promotes relationship formation. 

Validate Insights From All Voices

In the second storming stage, conflicts arise as differences in personalities, approaches, and roles clash.  This could occur, for example, when a team is convened to determine a strategy to address the challenge of a new government policy.  

To get beyond this stage, an open and respectful environment is necessary for members to communicate frequently and honestly.  Leaders must establish communication guidelines, coach employees to listen actively to others, appreciate differences, and resolve any known conflicts.  Learning and supporting these skills through team building exercises can help groups overcome and persevere through this conflictual period to develop resilience. 

Promote Mutual Support

During the norming stage, the group begins to cohere as a unit.  Members recognize the different roles they play, and the interdependence of their parts in completing the task.  A strong communication format remains essential to promote the optimal exchange of ideas and information.  Employees should feel supported and confident that their honest feedback is welcome and appreciated.  

Team building activities useful to this stage encourage the active listening, collaboration and participation of all members.  Exercises with an inclusive framework like this value the contributions of each member and their importance to the overall performance of the team. 

Encourage Communication Flow

Once the team internalizes the roles and structure of the group, it enters the performing stage to execute on its objectives.  Members see that their team effort can outperform the talent of any individual to overcome obstacles, for example, facing the competition of new technologies.  

A team’s creativity and productivity grows when members ask for feedback, share information, request for help, and disclose errors (without fear of undermining their own interests) to find solutions quickly.  Having a psychologically safe space is crucial to promoting this type of communication, mutual support and innovative thinking.  

Supportive team building exercises at this juncture strengthen deep listening, reinforce the value of each member, and boost the cooperative exchange of diverse ideas efficiently.

Celebrate the Team

The team moves into the adjourning stage as it achieves its goals.  Celebrating and recognizing the accomplishments of the team as well as specific members rewards the success of a unified team.  

Parties and rituals give the team a moment to step back and feel pride in the results of their collective effort.  Team building events that close with a tribute to the group as a whole bolster cohesion, give a group the taste of the unifying joy of success, and foster more success.  

Conclusion

Team building activities are useful tools for leaders to bring cohesion within their teams.  A variety of exercises are available to develop different teamwork skills.  The efficacy of these activities depends on the team’s developmental stage.  By selecting activities that aligns with a team’s needs and stage of development, leaders can enhance unity and togetherness, transform performance, and improve resilience in the face of rapid changes in our society.

Sartvourez helps groups and teams have supportive, fun, group bonding conversations through the collaborative exploration of art and wine.  

Art: Diego Rivera, Allegory of California (1930-1931)