Building bonds, while fostering community and social responsibility, develops effective and meaningful team-building activities. By Allan Lynch, February 26, 2010

Patty MacPherson, CMP Sales Manager JPdL Toronto Inc.

When US Airways Flight 1549 plunged into New York’s Hudson River in January, 2009, an aviation specialist said one of the contributing factors to the successful landing was that the crew — Captain Chesley Sullenberger, copilot Jeff Skiles and three flight attendants — acted together. They had done four flights together and knew each other, so they reacted as a team.

Fortunately, most of us will never have to be responsible for saving a colleague or client’s life. However, this does highlight the value of teamwork. And in an era where we struggle to understand colleagues and clients and not overstep social and business boundaries, the concept of team-building becomes more important.

Game-Based Activity

Traditionally, team-building has been a game-based activity, sometimes not universally greeted by openedarmed participants. For most city-based desk-jockies, it’s a stretch to figure out the relevance of hanging from treetops in the forest. The one unifying element is usually a collective hatred of the person who organized the activity.

And does effective team-building require pushing people to be uncomfortable or frightened?

Niesa Silzer, creative director at Calgary’s Details Convention and Event Management, did her masters degree on adventure travel and meeting planning. Her conclusion: There’s not enough data to prove taking a team whitewater rafting will improve staff retention or address other HR issues.

Silzer says, “A lot of people contact our company and want a team-building programme. I say, ‘great, what are your objectives?’ And immediately, that stops them.”

Not only have clients not thought about objectives, but they “don’t dedicate the resources or dollars to do a programme that will actually teach them to communicate better. There are some fantastic programmes out there, and they’re expensive. But they actually have results.”

Silzer is a fan of L(earn)2’s programme Save the Titanic. “It’s fantastic. I’ve seen groups go through it where they actually learn how to communicate in a group setting and there’s that ‘ah-ha’ moment. Of course, they’re being facilitated through it, but you can see that this person has tuned out, that this person is taking charge and how everyone is working together — or not — based on how they’re contributing. Once those lightbulbs go off, all of a sudden, everyone starts working better together.”

“Our industry loves ROI, but a lot of it is so hard to measure. What’s your return on your satisfaction level?” This is where philanthropic team-building is on the rise. While some participants may feel less than motivated in a game situation, others can be driven by the desire to actually make a difference.

Habitat For Humanity

One of the biggest groups working in corporate teambuilding is the Habitat for Humanity Canada Foundation.

With the help of 50,000 volunteers (up by 20,000 in five years), Habitat builds 200 new homes a year in 73 locations across Canada. According to Lisa Lalande, Habitat’s Toronto-based national director for corporate partnerships, “We see a movement to more of the hands-on impact and direct local community involvement.” Habitat provides “that tangible opportunity to get involved,” which is key for team-building.

Lalande tells the story of a woman who came to the build site with her colleagues. “The team leader for the day asked her, ‘what are you good at?’ She said, ‘I’m good at painting and landscaping.’ He said, ‘excellent. You’re going to be putting in a toilet today.’” She was given a task that stretched her and provided a new skill.

Bike Building

Patty MacPherson, CMP, sales manager at JPdL Toronto Inc., has worked with Mount Tremblant-based Outeractive Experiences, who facilitate bike-building as a team activity. Outeractive’s concepts creator Patrick Lussier says they can accommodate from 50 to 300 participants.

For one group client, they built 55 bikes in the ballroom of the Hilton Lac Leamy. Lussier says “They were launching a campaign internally to get employees to be more sensitive about the environment. The recipient organization was Bikes for Humanity, so they had representatives present a short slideshow showing how bikes impact the lives of the people in Africa. A bike does a lot for us, but does a lot more for an African mother who wants to take her children to a hospital.”

Participants also learned that the container transporting the bikes would be converted into a bike shop, with locals trained to become bike mechanics. “So there’s a whole programme behind the donation that’s a little more complex,” he says.

MacPherson likes the bike programme because “it’s a turn-key solution. The client shows up with their delegates in the meeting space and we take over.” Asked how she measured the results, MacPherson says, “Every programme we’ve run has been a huge success. When the children arrive to pick up their bikes, we create a small ceremony. We present each team to the child and they, in turn, give the child his/her bike. There isn’t a dry eye in the house. That’s genuine.”

Daily Bread

Toronto’s Daily Bread Food Bank is another example of socially responsive team-building. They host corporate groups three days a week. According to Kristin Thomas, Daily Bread’s development officer for corporate and foundations, “Some groups will just come in with a few people from a department, whereas some will come in with over 100 people and make it a competition to see who can sort the most food. Often, they’re bringing employees who work in different offices, offering them a way to connect, as well as give back to the community.” It’s so successful that Daily Bread books groups up to three months in advance.

Best of all, this new-style team-building lets colleagues connect over something real and doesn’t require trekking off into the wilderness, saving time and budget. However, for those who want to do something to help the wilderness and aren’t afraid of travel, there’s Inuit-owned Cruise North, which operates a 122-passenger, 328-ft. expedition vessel in Canada’s Arctic. While they have hosted a floating meeting, they also offer a conservation cruise each fall, which could easily be offered as a team-building expedition.

Their typical clean-up cruise itinerary allocates three days cleaning up a site(s), two days of fun (looking for polar bears and other wildlife) and two days sailing. He says, “If you want to incorporate team-building with a small group (10-30) into the clean-up cruise, there’s plenty of free time and space to do it. The majority of our client’s interest is leisure, but we can always tweak it so it accommodates team-building.”

— Allan Lynch is a New-Minas, N.S.-based freelance writer and regular contributor to M&IT.

Originally published in Meetings & Incentive Travel Magazine