One of the biggest benefits of team building activities is that they give your team a huge motivational boost, and as the leader of that team, you should make the most of that. Motivating a team through team-building activities is of no use if the levels of motivation only stay high momentarily and drop once the activities have stopped.
What you really want is for your team to keep their motivation levels high continually, and that can be achieved if you set up and implement your team building activities in the right way. Most crucial is that you plan and consider the motivation elements of any team building exercise carefully for maximum effect. Your team-building activities with leadership training should have these four critical elements which will help to motivate your team.
Fun
It does not matter whether you training a football team, a group of dancers, or a team of salespeople, for them to feel motivated, they have to enjoy what they are doing. Your team building activities should have an element of fun so that the activity is not seen as some kind of chore, or worse, a penance.
Actually, this applies to any training which you give your team, but it is especially important with regards to motivating them. Working together on a task which solidifies the team spirit, but at the same time allows them to have fun, is always going to produce better results than activities that are boring and downbeat.
A Sense Of Purpose
There is an old proverb that says, ‘A person without a target hits nothing’, and that is perfectly true of any team as well. When you are creating your team building activities you need them to have a purpose, but more than that, they need to instil that sense of purpose within your team too.
A team with a purpose, goal, target, or whatever term you want to use, is going to have a much greater chance of hitting or achieving it if they all know what they are collectively aiming for.
Thinking Creatively
Even if your team’s main purpose is a physical one, such as a rugby team, you should still seek to have them improve their creativity. After all, on the rugby field outthinking the opposition with some creative play, is likely to win you the game. This applies to any team scenario where you want all of them to use their creative minds to come up with solutions to problems and ways to improve.
Team building activities are great opportunities to encourage creative thinking within your team so that they feel comfortable sharing ideas, discussing them, and then formulating a plan which they are all motivated to implement. If they can do so successfully during team building exercises, it augurs well for when they need to find the motivation to perform for real as a team.
Positivity
Probably the most obvious goal of team building activities relating to motivation is making your team feel positive, however, it is not always as easy as it might seem. Team building activities often require some ‘cards on the table’ moments which can mean venting some pent up frustrations.
This is no bad thing if it is done with the purpose of the team being able to be open and honest, but at the same time respectful of each other. The end result is hopefully a team that understands each other better and is now feeling positive and motivated to help everyone in that team to be successful.