If your small business is not so small that it has more than one person in it, do you do team building exercises or events? If so, what do you do? Is it for fun and relationship building or simply educational? Do you have events online or in person?

@deairby Right now I am solo, but I’ve workd for small companies and most have done at a minimum relationship building. Events of all types are possible,and one thing that can work well is to put a small team to work on a project that is company oriented, but perhaps out of their normal swim lanes, so everyone has to grow.

If you are a mix of virutal and online, video meetings are helpful. An “all hands” meeting at set intervals helps keep people in tune with good and bad things in the business. Actually sharing the downs is equally important to sharing the good news, as it tends to promote trust that you are actually sharing.

Amongst other things we run team building courses, please feel free to contact me if you want details 

(I understand it is not the done thing to put website addresses here but please let me know if that is incorrect)

Hi @deairby I facilitate team building African drumming workshops for business and schools. The objectives vary though the main (business) ones are:

forge deeper connections to others in the group

feel accepted and a sense of belonging

experience happiness and unity

have lots of fun within the group

Hope this helps you.

Cheers Peta

Hi there

I am a psychologist and I also have an Army background. I run team and leadership development training. Team building is really important but it is so much more than just having social activities or doing something scary like a high ropes course together. Yes – those things can be important – but they are useless without really strong foundations. First you have to build trust among your team members and to build trust you must have good communication. The fun activities and the risky activities are only a small part of building trust.  You also need to make sure you have good accountability. If no one gets held accountable – then not much will happen. You need to build commitment to the task at hand as well. Once you have these foundations in place – the rest starts to follow. Check out Patrick Lenzioni -5 dysfunctions of a team. This will provide a good starting point. 

Is there a link to the 5 dysfunctions? @libbythompson

I got exposed to team building or Leadership Training due to our corporate mentor. She sent me to a leadership training program in Houston for a weekend. It was a game changer for me. I have since sent my wife, children and staff. I have clients and vendors who have also attended.

The benefits for me was I improved my focus, my communication style improved with my team and family. I learned to manage expectations of myself, my team and my family I accept personal responsibility in everything I do. My team focuses on positive outcomes not the circumstances that pop up. Part of our transformation led us to throw away our Mission Statement and create our Bushido Code http://rdzmedia.com/bushido/

Our bottom line is the growth of our company which went from 5 people before we got involved with leadership training to a staff of 14 and sales in the mid 7 figures.