Media: Insurance and Financial Meetings Management (6/08)
Transformation Teambuilding: A new twist on the tradional
By Diana Rowe

How many times have meeting planners had to endure groans and eye-rolling when attendees learn that teambuilding is on the agenda?  That’s because tried and true approaches are beginning to lose their luster with overworked attendees who would rather be checking their BlackBerrys than “playing games”.  To satisfy the corporate mandate of developing motivated, productive employees to compete for attendees attention, planners are charged with finding innovative activities that put the BlackBerry on the back burner.

Sometimes it’s as simple as putting a new twist on traditional team building activities.  But now more than ever, what really strikes a cord is teambuilding with a purpose.  There is no obstacle course, scavenger hunt or boatbuilding program that compares with the smile on the face of an underprivileged child who gets his first bike ever – or his first prosthetic hand – assembled by your team.  The same objective of cooperation and communication are achieved but with added, profoundly powerful component of doing good for others.  “Paying it forward” not only enriches giver and receiver, it extends to the company’s bottom line. 

“I witnessed firsthand my colleagues’ leadership and coaching styles emerge,” recalled Joseph Atalig, sales development manager of the Tempe, AZ regional office of Wells Fargo & Company.  “Yet, the dynamics of working together for something bigger didn’t click until the kids came out.” 

Atalig refers to the Life Cycles workshop, facilitated by Odyssey Teams, Inc.  Each team builds a bicycle.  When the bike is completed, the kids enter the ballroom to claim their bikes.  This is a program he’s participated in four times, each time recording tangible results in the team’s success when returning to the office.  Just over a year ago, the impact was measured when his Arizona delegates became the number-one team in sales out of 24 districts with one of the lowest employee turnovers in the state. 

Changing Lives
“It might be a simply bicycle-building team event,” added Atalig, “but the simplicity is what connects the team members to the local underprivileged youth.  We are rewarded by doing something for others, and then witnessing that pure excitement on the kids’ faces.  In turn, that accomplishment connects back to the team that built that bike.  We realized that we’re not just selling loans and checking accounts, we’re changing lives.  There’s a bigger purpose in what we do every day. 

 When planning his teambuilding event with Odyssey, Atalig was asked probing questions in order to customize the events, ranging from the meeting objective to the culture of their region. 

Life Cycles is just one of several of Odyssey Teams’ philanthropic programs and a textbook example of teambuilding for a cause.  Lain Hensley, owner and COO of Odyssey Teams, said, “We wanted to create relevant experiences so that peole can have transformational moments.  Forming an emotional bond, such as with the bike-building experience, creates an internal pressure to personally sustain change and motivate first.” 

Hensley said that for a team to develop there are four stages: forming, storming, norming and performing.  In the first stages of teambuilding the forming of the team takes place.  The team meets and learns about the opportunity and challenges, and then agrees on the goals and begins to tackle the tasks.  Every group then enters the storming stage in which different ideas compete for consideration, a stage when team members begin to open up to each other.  In the norming stage, the team adjusts their behavior with one another, developing work habits conducive to creating a fluid team.  The final stage is performing, when team members become interdependent, motivated and knowledgeable. 

“If teams don’t go through these four phases, they won’t know where they are,”  explained Hensley.  “The first three stags are accomplished by teambuilding, so we can certainly escalate that time period through specific teambuilding activities.”

Once Odyssey discovered the bridge between training models and philanthropy, Hensley said he started opening the lens to find activities with more global impact.  One of those new inspiring programs Odyssey created is Helping Hands, an exclusive program in cooperation with the Ellen Meadows Prosthetic Hand Foundation. 

“The program challenges participants to assemble artificial hands for later donation overseas,” explained Hensley.  “As participants realize what they’re building a profound sense of responsibility emerges, as they are literally giving an amputee a new life.  This sense of teamwork brings a new purpose to their life and career.” 

The program includes a video that shows the amputees, tens of thousands of youth and adults maimed as a result of landmine explosions or political violence in developing countries, receiving their new hands.

Whether launching a new product, building business strategies or cultivating leaders in a recent merger, teambuilding is a proven tool that boosts performance.  But perhaps the bet programs are those that help to change lives for the better.