Recently in Team Building Category

Waiting. Plugged into one of the few, coveted outlets at Gate 12. Ready to pierce the night sky at 560 mph, 40,000 feet and 60 below zero - in a coke-bottle-shaped tube with wings. As the earth's most collaborative species, together, we have made this kind of technologically advanced transportation possible. So many shoulders on which we have stood.

Our world is becoming smaller and smaller, faster and faster every day. But with each breakthrough in technology we also galvanize a new level of expectation where we feel justified in complaining that our flight is delayed an hour - or a day, or that "this" airline doesn't have TVs in the back of EVERY seat or that our phone can't make toast.

I can't take it anymore!!! What is teambuilding?

After 20 years of traveling all over the world and working with the top of fortune 100 companies and the bottom of lots of others, I have hit my breaking point. I've been doing leadership development, communication seminars and "teambuilding" and many of my own clients are still wondering... What is teambuilding? I'm wondering what they really want from me. I'm not sure anybody really knows. I might not even know. But at this point, I'm as big an expert as I can find, so I am going to try and help define this beast for all of us. The definition has become so broad, so overused that some people are beginning to confuse "team hazing" as teambuilding and I don't really want to be a part of that. Do you...?

Experience (Odyssey w/17 years, 21 countries, 150,000 people) and positive, common, extraordinary teambuilding experiences are key to the growth of teams and leaders.

Are you the leader you are today because of the experiences you've had: In sports, at church and in scouting? Under a mentor's guidance and through challenges you've overcome? Through casual time with cohorts, from your time in the field and by having honest conversations?

We bet you answered Yes to most of the above. More than any book, class, PowerPoint presentation, or lecture, your most effective training has come from your experiences and your willingness to learn from them.

Leaders who have the humility to know they need to learn more and the drive to do so - engage in experiences that matter throughout their careers.

Rekindle and support your team's leadership qualities and behaviors. These results occur time and again during the Life Cycles, Helping Hands, and Playhouse Project programs we deliver and we don't take them for granted.

30 - 1200 people in 4-7 hours? That is where Odyssey Teams, Inc. excels like no other. Team building with purpose. Because experience and experiences matter!

In Odyssey's team building and philanthropic bike building teambuilding programs (Life Cycles), we often mention that if you want something to be different for your self, team or business... the first thing to do is to catch yourself being yourself. This raised level of awareness puts you almost as 'another person' in the room watching/noticing your actions. This added awareness gives you more choices in which to move.

You may catch yourself being cynical, taking the lead, acquiescing, not asking for help, going first, going last, playing it safe, taking a risk, making a put-down, holding back a request, etc.

As soon as you notice a particular conditioned tendency creeping in, the gift then is to pause and decide if this action/thought will serve or hinder what you're up to and where you want to go. You may find a benefit to do more of 'it', less of 'it' or keep 'it' as is... thus, Choice. Now you get to respond and have influence rather than reacting...which can often cause mischief for you and/or those around you.

Our Life Cycles (Build-a-Bike), Helping Hands, and Playhouse Project programs all offer new and neutral experiences for people to have fun, connect with others, and to practice catching themselves being themselves.

Added bonus: The culture of your teams and business (just people) will shift for the better when this practice/skill is in the mix with you and your cohorts.

So go fishing. I'm sure you'll catch something useful.

I read a scientific study recently that people's overall success and happiness is determined by the belief that they have some control or influence on their future and the world around them. People that held this belief were far more successful, created more desired results, and had better health.

This fact seems instrumental in what Corporations should be focusing on providing for their people. Currently the economy is tenuous, which can lead to uncertain times and draw people into fear, hesitancy and stagnation. What we have witnessed is that Odyssey programs can reestablish and ignite people's attitudes that they can impact their world. This is a powerful belief that leads to more hopefulness, productivity, and pure motivation.
Businesses may not be able to give their employees security right now, but they can give them something (especially in this economical climate) priceless and long lasting. The inspired feeling that they do indeed have an impact and influence on the world around them. That what they do does matter significantly.
This is the first attitudinal principle that gets questioned in these kinds of times. Helping Odyssey programs like Life Cycles (bike building teambuilding) will ignite the belief that I can make a difference no matter what the circumstances. This is the key to success because it promotes an ability to transcend the current climate of fear and uncertainty. This fact has been revealed through our own experiences and observation, but also scientifically supported.

As Sr. Event Manager for Odyssey I have the pleasure of being on the inside track and planning the Life Cycle's Programs, as well as other programs within the company. I find it hard to believe sometimes that it is a job. I never thought a job would give me to opportunity to change children's lives, thousands of children's lives.

One of my most memorable "life changing" experiences took place last year. We were doing a roll out with a large company. It involved planning programs that were going on simultaneously, stretching from California all the way to Florida. There is no describing the hours and hours of work that went into planning these programs. On the last day in Chicago, exhausted and more emotional then ever, my life changed.

These children were from Southside Chicago. If you have never heard of Southside, it is not surprising. They see things everyday that most people never experience. They come from single parent families, if they have a parent at all. Discipline is not a part of most of their lives.

There was one particular teenage girl that stood out that day. She had attitude. The way that she treated one of the Boys and Girls club directors was inappropriate. Oddly, I was nervous to tell this 11 year old girl that she was out of line. By reprimanding her it made her respect me. She went on to explain how she did not like this director and that she did not have to listen to her. After going back and forth she agreed that she would just not speak to her.

I watched this child's attitude change right in front of my eyes. The moment the doors opened and she realized she was getting a bike, not just a bike but an opportunity, an experience, a moment to feel special, my life changed. It made truly realize how lucky I am and how to be better with the children I work with. She came up to me with tears in her eyes and gave me this immense hug. She apologized to me, the exchange that we had has pushed me to work so hard for these kids. It is amazing what a bike can do.

Change all your negative thinking about the people who do not fit in. These people on the edges are just that. They are the most important part of our schools and your business, our communities and the world. They are like the edge pieces of a great puzzle. Take time now to think about who is on the edge in your life. Homeless people, bullies, nerds, your crazy uncle and so on. It is our job as leadership teachers and leaders in business to find them and fit them in first. Our reflex is to avoid them and label them as trouble makers or unmotivated dead wood. Think about it. When you are putting a puzzle together, you don't go right for the middle. The easy part that holds the key image of the picture. No. You look for the edge pieces. The apparently unimportant pieces when the picture is together. You know the people who do not fit in at work or at school. Don't avoid them. Search them out. Look for the corner pieces. The ones that appear to cause the most trouble or have almost nothing in common with the rest of the work team. These are the most vital points of your puzzle. I know they are not as much fun as the middle and when it is all together they don't get the focus or the praise. But, they hold it together. You know it and I know it. So make a list and get started. In a subtle way let them know how valuable they are. No matter how small or how big your puzzle is you will always have edges and corners. Even in the smallest family or work team. The middle will fall together as a result. Give them the value they deserve. You can do it!

Look around your business or school today. You can see the diverse environment our kids are growing up in. Many people are cast out and find themselves lost in a feeling of misfit hopelessness. Kind of like the toys on the classic Rudolph the red nose rain deer movie. Only this time they are real lives. They are lives as important and with as much potential as yours and mine. Sons and daughters, feeling lost and without hope and without a place in the picture. After school they grow up and take this same hopelessness into the workplace. What should leaders do about this reality?

So often we see teams working on the plays and not the other stuff. They practice play after play before the players are fitting together. Coming up with more and more complex systems and processes and thinking that success is automatic if they can just come up with the next greatest formation. Heart. The pulse of the team is the key. You cannot win if you have no heart of a team and that must be discovered buy each person connecting to the purpose. They can never forget to focus on the reason they are together. The patiently prepare each person for their role and put the right kind of people in the right position. Teamwork or die. All football players must see their role as MVP material and visa versa. They all matter and they all win together or loose together. That is the fact.

Solutions to the teamwork challenges in Chapter 1 are tough to come by. We at Odyssey know a few things about taking the worst teams and making them the best. To keep it as simple as possible. First step, remind them why they have been put together. Remind them all the time! In as many ways as you can. Make the team objective personal to each of them and show them how the overall goal will benefit each of them. Do you think a professional football coach doesn't remind his team about a little goal called the Super Bowl. They do. Everyday, in as many ways as they can. They then remind them of the few key behaviors that will get them there. They practice those behaviors and never stray. They then prepare each player for the role they will play in the overall goal. Blocker, defense and quarterback. The key is putting the right people in the right positions. Match the skills and interests of each and celebrate all the roles as equal. The final step, the easy step is to learn a few plays. Each team can run the same plays as every other team in the league. The difference is the other stuff. What is missing from the success of your team is probably not in the play you are running but in the commitment, the heart, of each player on the field.