5 ways to kickstart your winning teams.

Get better results out of your team building events this summer using our helpful guidance drawn from industry experts.

	Freshen it up. Has your company picnic or golf tourney gone stale, or is it time to try something different to boost camaraderie and bolster performance in tough times? “Keep your team building programs fresh, innovative and challenging. Range their difficulty from fun to super challenging to get the team to push themselves,” suggests Vittoria Wikston, CMP, a partner in the sales training and consulting division of Redchair Branding in Hamilton.
	Know your personalities. Recognize that people have different creative and learning styles. “Few organizers ever consider anything beyond gender or suggestions from the last conference when selecting their team building activities,” says Colin Funk, creative programming director of leadership development at The Banff Centre. He often uses a creativity assessment tool called FourSight, to identify whether team members are clarifiers, ideators, developers or implementers, adapting programs to suit the style.
	Focus on the follow-up. If your objective is to shape behaviour or introduce new ways of working together, the end of the event is really just the beginning. “At the end of the activity, we put a lot of focus on the debriefing, where a facilitator helps make the connections on what challenges were addressed, and how the lessons can be applied,” says Geneviève Lemay, project director of Montreal-based Agence Team Building. Consider following up with group or individual coaching in the workplace.
	Avoid the “one-off.” You get more demonstrable results when you can integrate team building activities more strategically into training or development. “Schedule them often - twice a year minimum. I highly suggest once a quarter,” suggests Wikston. “It helps continue momentum, strengthens the messaging from one program to another and enables the team to see its improvement over time.”
	Stay open to new experiences. Shake things up with the element of surprise, from revving up your engines on the race track, to planning an urban safari.