Team Building Isn’t an Activity

Start typing the phrase “team building…” into any search engine, and the auto-populate feature will spring to action with a dozen different varieties of the phrase “team building activities.” Your search results will yield dozens of millions of webpages offering team building activities, virtual team building activities, offsite team building activities, quick team building activities, and so many more.

But all of these articles, and much of our own thinking, rests on an assumption that was really never tested—and when it finally was, it was debunked.

Team building is not an activity.

I know this might be hard to receive. You’ve been to team-building activities, after all. You’ve been made to scale the ropes course or figure out how to lay down beams and cross an imaginary river. You’ve done the trivia games and social hours on Zoom. Those were referred to as team-building activities – and yes, they were activities.

But if we’re being honest, they weren’t really that effective at team building. Were they?

The research suggests that the effectiveness of team-building activities is all over the board. What’s effective for one team is ineffective for another. However, amidst all the variance and noise, there is a subtle suggestion in the data: what matters is how similar the activity is to real-world work. 

Without similarity to the tasks a team faces, there’s no real way to apply any lessons learned and no triggers for new behavior once the team goes back to work.

Said better: team building isn’t an activity; it’s a habit.

Unless the chosen activity changes a team’s habits, it probably wasn’t worth the effort. Moreover, perhaps it would have been better to focus on team habit-building in the first place. So, in this article, we’ll outline the habits leaders can start to build that will better build the team as well.

Provide Structure and Clarity

The first team-building habit leaders should develop is to provide structure and clarity regularly. Structure and clarity mean helping everyone on the team know what is expected of them and what is expected of everyone else. 

It means each team member knows the others’ knowledge, skills, abilities, assignments, and deadlines. They know what they’re supposed to deliver and how to help if needed.

One of the fastest ways to build structure and clarity in a team is to start a regular huddle. A huddle is a simple way for teams to circle together and give each other a status update. It could be an in-person or virtual meeting, but it could also be an email template, form, or a channel on the team’s chat tool. 

In a huddle, each team member updates the others by answering a few quick questions like: What did I just complete? 

What am I focused on next? 

What is blocking my progress? 

(Those questions are adapted from the “scrum” in agile teams; you’re welcome to steal them or adapt and make them your own.) 

Over time, the huddle teaches the team to “work out loud” so everyone knows what everyone is doing, which creates greater opportunities for collaboration.

Find Unstructured Time

The second team-building habit for leaders is to find unstructured time. We’ve all experienced unstructured time at work. It’s those small talk hallway chats, the larger conversations in the break room, or sharing a meal with a few members of the team. 

Unstructured time is the time when a team is together with no plan and talking about nonwork issues. That might sound like something really ineffective—like a waste of time—but it’s the unstructured time when people build bonds on a team. 

When people feel free to talk about their lives outside of work, they end up finding “uncommon commonalities” with the people they work with. Uncommon commonalities are things they have in common with each other that few others on the team or company have. Uncommon commonalities are the beginnings of bonds that build teams.

The easiest way to find unstructured time that can bond your team together no matter where they are is before meetings. Whether your meetings are in-person or held virtually, make it a point to tell the team you’ll be there a few minutes before the start time in case anyone is running early and just wants to chat. 

Over time, more and more members of the team will develop the habit of being early so that they can socialize with their team members and connect over uncommon commonalities.

Discuss Purpose Often

The final team-building habit for leaders is to discuss their purpose often. We know from mountains of research that purpose in the job is a powerful motivator—and that a large enough purpose can bond a team together. 

But we also know that most employees are not experiencing a big enough sense of purpose in their work. It may be easy for a lot of managers to dismiss purpose because not every company can be a disruptive innovator or an international for-benefit company. 

However, every person in every job can experience some level of purpose by understanding how their role fits into the larger organization or who specifically is helped by their work.

The most potent way leaders help their teams experience purpose is by capturing the stories that help that understanding. This could be done by collecting stories of customers who are helped by the work the team does, or it could be done by connecting the team with internal customers—people inside the organization who benefit from the work of the team. It doesn’t take much to get people to feel purpose; it takes a small conversation held often.

Encourage Feedback 

Feedback, especially when negative, can make things awkward for the team. But when it becomes part of your everyday life, you will see good things coming around. Feedback is not about pointing out what went wrong or others’ mistakes.

It’s about improving and celebrating whatever is going right. The way you view feedback, in fact, has a lot of impact on how it affects you. Think of it as a glue that will hold you and your team members together and keep you all aligned on the same goals. 

Now, how can you make feedback a regular thing?

Regularly check in with your team members. Whether at the end of a meeting or a monthly review, take the time to sit with your team members and talk about the tasks on hand. Ask them what’s going right and what you can improve the next time.

Sometimes, people are not very open and hesitate to speak up with their leaders. So, you can always use anonymous surveys or suggestion boxes.

You can also use tools like SurveyMonkey and Officevibe to collect honest feedback from your team.

Foster Cross-Functional Collaboration

Cross-functional collaboration is also important for teamwork. When you create a team working across departments, you get fresh ideas and perspectives from different units and can solve problems better.

It’s also a great way to learn more about each department’s hurdles and capabilities and form bonds with other teams within the organization.

It’s quite easy to create cross-functional teams. You can give the teams rotational assignments outside their usual roles. You can also set up training workshops or individual sessions where the different teams can sit together and share their expertise. Such activity can also be done online for remote teams by using tools like Trello and Miro.

As per research by Deloitte, those companies with the highest level of cross-functional collaboration are 1.5 times more likely to outperform their competitors.

Wrap Up

Team building doesn’t just happen on its own; it is cultivated by consistent habits and activities for collaboration, clarity, and connection with the team. When you provide a structure and ensure everyone is on the same page about their roles and responsibilities, you can create a space where people form genuine bonds and share their experiences.

Perhaps the best part of each of the habits above is that they don’t cost much to start building. It doesn’t cost anything but short amount of time. Huddles and unstructured time can be quick habits added onto the regular work week. The purpose is something that can be shared daily in just a few minutes. 

But these habits add up quickly, and the leaders who develop them will start building a team that can do its best work ever.