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CORPORATE TRAINING ; Building Great Teams ; A Star Team Will Always Beat a Team of Stars. Simon Young Finds Out How Companies Can Weld a Disparate Bunch of Individuals into a Cohesive, Successful Unit.

Posted on: Monday, 3 April 2006, 06:00 CDT

By Simon Young

Soldiers aren't motivated by hatred, fear or patriotism, but by being part of a team.

That's the finding of author Dave Grossman in his book On Killing, reviewed by US-based sales trainer Tony Mayo on his website www.mayogenuine.com. In his review he contrasts the culture of soldiers with that of salespeople. "Many sales organisations... pit salespeople against each other and minimise the role of sales managers," he says. "It is a world of lone wolves, though teamwork and leadership are demonstrated multipliers of effectiveness."

While most would admit that a little bit of internal competition is healthy, Kevin McMahon says there's a line that can be crossed into unhealthy territory. McMahon's the managing director of Blue Chip Coaching, and says unhealthy competition within a team can siphon energy away from the team's purpose.

When you say "team building" a number of cliches spring to mind: climbing rock faces, bungy jumping, going fishing together. And you could say they're cliches because they work.

Venues like the Mystery Creek Events Centre are increasingly offering corporate training and team-building activities that use both corporate boardrooms and outdoor locations. "The venue is an adventure playground," says Mystery Creek coordinator Elysia Shirtcliff.

An increasing desire for flexibility has led the venue to offer a range of services from specialised team training to catering, accommodation, guest speakers and entertainment.

Entertainment is self-service in team-building sessions with John McKenzie, owner of training and events company, enthuse. Part of his programme involves getting team members to create their own entertainment show to pre-sent to a larger group. "Getting people to 'play act' and entertain with a set of specific goals in mind really helps to break down barriers," says McKenzie.

McKenzie works with Queenstown-based Rhythm Interactive, which takes a simple idea - everyone in the room playing African drums in rhythm - and uses it to weld teams together by building their own band and designing their own instruments.

Rhythm Interactive founder John Boone discovered the concept in a bar in South Africa in May 2002. The company's website www.rhythminteractive.co.nz tells the story: "Sixty people, all with a djembe in front of them, drumming together, led by two facilitators. Captivated by this experience, John spent the next two months visiting small African djembe factories." Boone discovered the drum circle concept had become a huge success in the corporate conference market in the United Kingdom.

Heletranz provides tailored experiences that are as much reward as team-building exercise, including fishing trips on the rocks, restaurant excursions - even the ominously titled Tour of Duty.

It's not as much hard work as it sounds, although participants could be forgiven for thinking so at the beginning of the day. Unannounced, a World War II-style army truck pulls up at the office and a sergeant major begins bellowing orders to staff. They're loaded on the truck and taken to Heletranz' base and choppered to a combination vineyard and brewery. Not much of a challenge, but an exhilarating experience for the team.

Not so cushy is the range of activities offered by Blackwater Rafting, part of Tourism Holdings which has a specialist training and team-building division. The most extreme blackwater rafting option has participants weave, jump and float through the Waitomo Caves, lit only by glow worms. It can be a powerful team-building exercise, but guide Angus Stubbs warns that the most extreme exercises be reserved for teams that already have a strong foundation.

For more dysfunctional teams, Stubbs recommends a "project adventure"; a treasure hunt including activities like crossing rivers and exploring caves. "It's like Treasure Island, but cooperative, not competitive," says Stubbs.

The Quest, Blackwater Rafting's most popular project adventure, is used as a diagnostic tool to discover individual strengths and weaknesses, and uncover dynamics between team members.

Stubbs often pulls managers out of team activities so they can observe rather than participate. "They come in, say 'I'd like to see how my team functions', then they leap in and run the thing," he says.

Pulling the manager out of the equation lets the natural leaders within the team discover their abilities, says Stubbs.

Nelson's Outward Bound School, on the other hand, leaves the manager in the team when they do challenging outdoor activities - like sailing a 32-foot cutter.

However, deputy director Mark Squires says they have a few tricks up their sleeves to make sure everyone gets the benefit of the experience. "We might contrive a situation where we blindfold or gag someone who is dominating the group," he says. "It gives other people the opportunity to perform."

The important thing, says Squires, is that team members get the opportunity to look inside themselves to see what they've got, and recognise complementary abilities in others.

Sailing is one of the school's most effective activities, because it provides a pressure cooker environment, says Squires. "You can't walk off and sulk when you're at sea!" he says.

Sometimes the simple things have the most effect. Team Tectonics' programme manager Greg Caigou recalls an event he put on for a nationwide chain, involving Fear Factor activities in Abel Tasman National Park. "The thing they enjoyed most," says Caigou, "was when I broke them into teams and they had to put together an afternoon feast for each other."

Caigou put the teams out of their comfort zone, making the meat team all female and the salad team all male. Out of all the activities, this "glorified barbecue", as Caigou calls it, was the most memorable. "Sometimes the old KISS [Keep It Simple Stupid] principle works very well," he says.

Just a bit further south in Christchurch, real estate sales teams are learning similar lessons not in the wilderness but in the training room. Their coach, Paul Ineson of the Coaching Company, says going out of your comfort zone doesn't have to be a radical journey; instead it can be a simple exercise that creates new awareness.

The key, says Ineson, is to "bypass their cognitive process. People tend to overthink, which is a problem in business." He says a great deal of time goes into thinking, which blocks the intuitive, spontaneous creativity that needs to come out.

Ineson's simple exercises include team members throwing a tennis ball to each other, following specific rules such as saying the name of the person you throw it to. "Then we add another ball, slow things down, speed things up," says Ineson. "We sit down afterwards and fill in a form which asks, 'What was happening?'" Through this process, the team discovers things about itself and opens up.

Key to this self-discovery is a safe environment. "People need to know they're safe to be themselves," says Ineson. "All the voices can be heard without judgement, and without agendas."

Both McMahon and Ineson emphasise the holistic nature of coaching. "Teams are made up of people," says McMahon. "Emotional intelligence is more important than IQ - it determines how effective team members are at being aware, managing their thinking and relationships."

Ineson says coaching often gets into personal areas. "You can't only focus on the business," he says. "People have got to be engaged in their whole life to be fully engaged in their business."

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Coaching, training and mentoring

They're all similar, but the book Coach Yourself @ Work (ABC Books 2005) articulates the difference between coaching, training, and mentoring.

Coaching. "A good coach will help you set goals, explore pathways toward those goals and help you stay on track when things get tough," says the book. A coach doesn't necessarily need any expert subject knowledge, just an ability to listen and reflect goals back to the coachee. Business and personal coaching came out of sports coaching, the main difference being that "in work and life coaching the goals tend to be complex and varied".

Mentoring is often thought of as synonymous with coaching, but the two fields are different. "Mentoring is about passing on highly personalised professional knowledge and experience in a specific field," says the book.

Training is about teaching particular skills. Coaching, on the other hand, "is less about acquiring specific skills and more about creating sustained shifts in behaviour, feelings and thinking". Still, coaching and training can make a powerful combination.

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Is it all worth it?

Team Tectonics' programme manager Greg Caigou says sometimes clients are unwilling to fully commit because - particularly in the marketing and sales arena - staff turnover is high. "They're chucking money at people who may not be there in a year's time," says Caigou.

While some staff turnover is undoubtedly due to a bad working environment, Caigou also sees it as a necessary rite of passage, particularly for younger workers. "Generation Y people move up the ladder by jumping between jobs," he says, "mainly because generation X have blocked out the middle to upper management slots."

Instead of skimping on training and team building, says Caigou, this should be an incentive for companies to invest in people. "If you build your employer brand," he says, "people will come back to you if you've been a good employer, and if you've invested in your people."

By setting a high standard and recruiting right, Caigou says employers can inherit good staff and accrue the development and investment that's been put into them by another company.

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Making it last

A fun day away is great, but does it really make a lasting difference? US-based team-building consultant Kevin Eikenberry warns against expecting a team-building event to solve all your problems.

"Leaders can invest in a team-building sessions so people get to know each other, but they don't have to invest themselves or look at the systems they have created as part of the problem," says Eikenberry in his manifesto True Team Building on website ChangeThis.com.

He warns of the dangers of assuming that team building is simply about helping people get along, saying, "improved relationships are only part of an effective team's performance puzzle".

Eikenberry's key is the CARB model - an acronym based on Commitment to the team and each other, Alignment and goal agreement, Relationships among team members, and Behaviours and skills needed to reach performance goals.

Particularly important is the A - aligning the team to meaningful performance goals. "Sometimes leaders just aren't thinking about it or are too busy to set a context for team success," reads the manifesto. Other times leaders believe their team is bright enough to figure out context and goals for themselves.

Auckland-based leadership coach Kevin McMahon, a partner at Blue Chip Coaching, agrees: "Real team development is a process, not an event." McMahon says real transition happens over a series of regular appointments, most commonly 12 months with his clients. "You don't want to leave it too open-ended either," he says.

Team Tectonics' programme manager Greg Caigou says he is often approached by companies who want to throw money at conflict situations. "Several times in my career," says Caigou, "I've said 'I can run an event and take your money off you, but it's not going to fix the situation.' Because adults change by increments over time."

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The dark side

From the demotivational website www.despair.com

Teamwork: When birds fly in the right formation, they need only exert half their effort. Even in nature, teamwork results in collective laziness.

Ignorance: It's amazing how much easier it is for a team to work together when no one has any idea where they're going.

Disloyalty: There comes a time when every team must learn to make individual sacrifices.

Consulting: If you're not part of the solution, there's good money to be made in prolonging the problem.

Irresponsibility: No single raindrop believes it is to blame for the flood.

Blame: The secret to success is knowing who to blame for your failures.

Incompetence: When you honestly believe you can compensate for a lack of skill by doubling your efforts, there's no end to what you can't do.

"Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups," Dr E L Kersten, founder of Despair, Inc.

* Simon Young is an Auckland-based writer. Contact him at simon@simonyoungwriters.com

Source: Marketing Magazine (Auckland)

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