If teamwork has changed so much, why are we still using the same outdated methods for team-building?
Just a few years ago, we weren’t thinking about topics like hybrid and remote setups, flexible working, multigenerational workforces, and creating inclusive workplaces as much as we are now. These factors have all significantly impacted how we interact and work together.
Yet, the way we develop our teams hasn’t caught up. We still use traditional approaches like ad-hoc team-building sessions and one-off away days. This is like doing a one-time 7-hour gym session and hoping it keeps you fit and healthy for the rest of the year.
To build teams that thrive for the long term, we need approaches that match the needs of our current times. This means moving from treating team culture development as an afterthought or a byproduct of our work to bringing it to the forefront of how we get work done. When we shift team-building from a separate event to embedding it within our work, we learn together and connect more every day.
That’s much easier said than done, so here are three ideas that could help:
1. Think more strategically about team culture
2. Encourage your team to become culture co-creators
3. Use collective problem-solving as a team-building activity
1. Think more strategically about team culture
Having a tactical approach to building team culture isn’t bad, per se. It’s much better than doing nothing at all. Examples might be the one-time team-building sessions that I mentioned above. It could also be that cool ritual you heard of another team doing, or a meeting format you read about that you want to try. These can form a valuable part of an overall strategy.
But when these methods are random and unrelated to what you’re trying to achieve as a team, you’ll miss out on getting real, long-lasting results and valuable learning opportunities.
To take it up a level, match your desired culture to your business goals and then consider the activities and behaviours that connect the two. From here, explore your skills and capabilities gaps, and build them into a team development plan to guide the training and learning you’ll do. This will get more buy-in and engagement from your team because they’ll be able to see the ‘why’ behind these activities.
2. Encourage your team to become culture co-creators
While it’s important for a leader to set the environment for high performance and collaboration, every team member impacts the culture, whether they are fully aware of this or not.
So, when we shift everyone towards becoming co-creators in building and sustaining a healthy team culture, they take an active role in shaping a better environment for themselves and their colleagues, not just leaving this activity to those who are most senior in the team.
This shift is significant because your team starts to build ownership and accountability for how you work together and a collective mindset for continuous improvement. Through exploring better ways of working, they’ll have live opportunities to practice critical thinking, facilitation and managing change. This moves them from working by default -just accepting how things are – to working by design and being more intentional about how they interact, communicate, and create systems and processes to ensure everyone can do their best work.
3: Use collective problem-solving as a team-building activity
A team will always face new challenges, and the key to thriving is not to try to avoid them completely. It’s to use them as an opportunity to strengthen your culture. Collective and proactive problem-solving around something affecting your team today is the best kind of team-building activity. It is real, relatable and builds your team as you work together.
As the adage goes, “a problem shared is a problem halved”. Just an open discussion can bring your team together, build cohesion and identify learning moments. Often, difficulties that team members thought were individual to them are characteristics of their work and environment and are experienced by others, too. When your team articulates these issues, it helps them to connect around a common challenge.
Then, you can have productive conversations about how to move forward, considering what’s in and out of your control as a team. You can either work to fix the ‘bugs’ that shouldn’t be there (like conflicts or broken processes) or reframe the ‘features’ that you can’t change immediately (like other teams, or the wider organisational culture).
As a result, your team builds confidence, resilience and problem-solving skills, which sets them up to solve future challenges more effectively as they appear.
The future long-term health of our teams requires us to think differently about culture, and when we are intentional about this, we set ourselves up for the best chance of success.
These three methods – thinking strategically about team culture, becoming culture co-creators and using collective problem-solving as a team-building method – integrate team-building into actual work rather than leaving it as a separate activity. Your team will be in constant learning as they explore better ways to work together.
Our Team Culture Diagnostic brings teams together to kickstart their culture journey and learn about the key factors of high-performing teams. Get in touch to discuss how it can help.