Corporate team building exercises, activities, and games

April 20th , 2010 → 12:00 pm @ admin

Team work and team building

Team building exercises, activities, and games grow in popularity as versatile practical tools of team training and development.

A group of people put together does not automatically make a team. People need to at least get to know each other, to learn to get along and communicate, to develop interpersonal trust, to build the team spirit. They need to develop all the practical habits of functioning as an effective team in their every day activities. How to help them do that?

There is a number of team building approaches. On the one hand, each team member could take a formal course on how to work in a team in general. But this tends to be boring for many people, and will hardly build much cohesion within your specific team, will hardly bring any new practical habits in functioning of your team.

On the other hand, you could use full scale services of corporate team training professionals. But this may be overkill for your particular situation or may just not fit into your budget.

In this situation team building exercises and team building activities may work as a more flexible and better targeted option.

There is a wide range of opportunities for team building exercises and games for practically any budget. There are professional consultants who help companies select and organize such events. Examples of popular and fun activities and games include road rallies, sailing regattas, snowboarding, fly fishing, interactive seminars, and on and on. The activities can be as simple and affordable as karaoke or as sophisticated and demanding as an African safari. There are books that put together many such kinds of team building ideas.

One common feature of many corporate team building exercises and events is that they put people into new challenging and fun situations that require much interaction between the team members. And sometimes the challenges can be tuned to focus on developing one or another team quality.

In particular, the team building activities can focus on improving communication, learning to take advantage of individual differences, learning to cope with change, learning to be supportive and appreciative, learning to put together creative solutions to nonstandard problems, or something else that the company considers important for its specific team.

Team building exercises seem to work better for some teams than for others. Some companies believe in them, some don’t. There are also differences in opinions on the exact nature of the specific benefits of such events. Yet, they still stay as an irreplaceable tool in the today’s team building toolbox.

For more information or teambuilding packages contact us on info@freshaevents.com

Category : Featured / General

Twelve Cs for Team Building

April 15th , 2010 → 12:00 pm @ admin

Team Building

Executives, managers and organization staff members universally explore ways to improve business results and profitability. Many view team-based, horizontal, organization structures as the best design for involving all employees in creating business success.

No matter what you call your team-based improvement effort: continuous improvement, total quality, lean manufacturing or self-directed work teams, you are striving to improve results for customers. Few organizations, however, are totally pleased with the results their team improvement efforts produce. If your team improvement efforts are not living up to your expectations, this self-diagnosing checklist may tell you why. Successful team building, that creates effective, focused work teams, requires attention to each of the following.

• Clear Expectations: Has executive leadership clearly communicated its expectations for the team’s performance and expected outcomes? Do team members understand why the team was created? Is the organization demonstrating constancy of purpose in supporting the team with resources of people, time and money? Does the work of the team receive sufficient emphasis as a priority in terms of the time, discussion, attention and interest directed its way by executive leaders?
• Context: Do team members understand why they are participating on the team? Do they understand how the strategy of using teams will help the organization attain its communicated business goals? Can team members define their team’s importance to the accomplishment of corporate goals? Does the team understand where its work fits in the total context of the organization’s goals, principles, vision and values?
• Commitment: Do team members want to participate on the team? Do team members feel the team mission is important? Are members committed to accomplishing the team mission and expected outcomes? Do team members perceive their service as valuable to the organization and to their own careers? Do team members anticipate recognition for their contributions? Do team members expect their skills to grow and develop on the team? Are team members excited and challenged by the team opportunity?
• Competence: Does the team feel that it has the appropriate people participating? (As an example, in a process improvement, is each step of the process represented on the team?) Does the team feel that its members have the knowledge, skill and capability to address the issues for which the team was formed? If not, does the team have access to the help it needs? Does the team feel it has the resources, strategies and support needed to accomplish its mission?
• Charter: Has the team taken its assigned area of responsibility and designed its own mission, vision and strategies to accomplish the mission. Has the team defined and communicated its goals; its anticipated outcomes and contributions; its timelines; and how it will measure both the outcomes of its work and the process the team followed to accomplish their task? Does the leadership team or other coordinating group support what the team has designed?
• Control: Does the team have enough freedom and empowerment to feel the ownership necessary to accomplish its charter? At the same time, do team members clearly understand their boundaries? How far may members go in pursuit of solutions? Are limitations (i.e. monetary and time resources) defined at the beginning of the project before the team experiences barriers and rework?Is the team’s reporting relationship and accountability understood by all members of the organization? Has the organization defined the team’s authority? To make recommendations? To implement its plan? Is there a defined review process so both the team and the organization are consistently aligned in direction and purpose? Do team members hold each other accountable for project timelines, commitments and results? Does the organization have a plan to increase opportunities for self-management among organization members?
• Collaboration: Does the team understand team and group process? Do members understand the stages of group development? Are team members working together effectively interpersonally? Do all team members understand the roles and responsibilities of team members? team leaders? team recorders? Can the team approach problem solving, process improvement, goal setting and measurement jointly? Do team members cooperate to accomplish the team charter? Has the team established group norms or rules of conduct in areas such as conflict resolution, consensus decision making and meeting management? Is the team using an appropriate strategy to accomplish its action plan?
• Communication: Are team members clear about the priority of their tasks? Is there an established method for the teams to give feedback and receive honest performance feedback? Does the organization provide important business information regularly? Do the teams understand the complete context for their existence? Do team members communicate clearly and honestly with each other? Do team members bring diverse opinions to the table? Are necessary conflicts raised and addressed?
• Creative Innovation: Is the organization really interested in change? Does it value creative thinking, unique solutions, and new ideas? Does it reward people who take reasonable risks to make improvements? Or does it reward the people who fit in and
• Consequences: Do team members feel responsible and accountable for team achievements? Are rewards and recognition supplied when teams are successful? Is reasonable risk respected and encouraged in the organization? Do team members fear reprisal? Do team members spend their time finger pointing rather than resolving problems? Is the organization designing reward systems that recognize both team and individual performance? Is the organization planning to share gains and increased profitability with team and individual contributors? Can contributors see their impact on increased organization success?
• Coordination: Are teams coordinated by a central leadership team that assists the groups to obtain what they need for success? Have priorities and resource allocation been planned across departments? Do teams understand the concept of the internal customer—the next process, anyone to whom they provide a product or a service? Are cross-functional and multi-department teams common and working together effectively? Is the organization developing a customer-focused process-focused orientation and moving away from traditional departmental thinking?
• Cultural Change: Does the organization recognize that the team-based, collaborative, empowering, enabling organizational culture of the future is different than the traditional, hierarchical organization it may currently be? Is the organization planning to or in the process of changing how it rewards, recognizes, appraises, hires, develops, plans with, motivates and manages the people it employs?Does the organization plan to use failures for learning and support reasonable risk? Does the organization recognize that the more it can change its climate to support teams, the more it will receive in pay back from the work of the teams?

Category : Featured / General

Emergency First Response (EFR) Courses

April 14th , 2010 → 12:10 pm @ admin

Emergency First Response Course

Recent world events have proven that the ability to manage medical emergencies is critical when disaster strikes and emergency services are overwhelmed or nonexistent.

Now you can get prepared to save the lives of your family, friends, coworkers and neighbors by taking Emergency First Response CPR and first aid courses. We’ll give you the confidence to respond when emergencies arise.

Fresha Events is offering tailor made EFR courses to your company, organization or family. HELP save the lives of your family, friends and neighbors. There has never been a better time to get CPR and first aid training

Emergency First Response (EFR) Course

The Emergency First Response Primary Care (CPR) and Secondary Care (First Aid) courses make up a foundational offering in emergency care for the lay provider. These two courses teach people how to provide emergency care for someone in need. These courses are designed to make learning easy by providing a non-stressful environment in which participants can practice and apply the emergency care skills taught them. The courses are further designed to:

• Help participants remember appropriate emergency care procedures during times of need.
• Encourage participants to apply those procedures by assisting those needing emergency care.

The EFR Primary and Secondary course are divided into three segments:

1) Knowledge development
2) Skill development
3) Scenario practice.

Participants will be given a manual, Emergency First Response Participant Manual, and the course will take one full day (roughly 8 hours). Upon completion of the course participants will be administered an exam which they must complete and score at least 75% on. The skills taught in these courses are encouraged to be refreshed every 24 months. An Emergency First Response Refresher course is also available. Emergency First Response courses are based on internationally recognized medical guidelines and follow protocols from the consensus view of the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR). These courses follow the same priorities of care used by professional emergency care providers. Educationally, the courses reflect a well researched instructional design for this type of training.

EFR courses can be conducted everywhere but with a minimum of 4 participants. Contact us for more information, rates and bookings on info@freshaevents.com

Category : Featured / General

Team work and team building essentials

April 12th , 2010 → 12:00 pm @ admin

Team building skills are critical for your effectiveness as a manager or entrepreneur. And even if you are not in a management or leadership role yet, better understanding of team work can make you a more effective employee and give you an extra edge in your corporate office.

A team building success is when your team can accomplish something much bigger and work more effectively than a group of the same individuals working on their own. You have a strong synergy of individual contributions. But there are two critical factors in building a high performance team.

The first factor in team effectiveness is the diversity of skills and personalities. When people use their strengths in full, but can compensate for each other’s weaknesses. When different personality types balance and complement each other.

The other critical element of team work success is that all the team efforts are directed towards the same clear goals, the team goals. This relies heavily on good communication in the team and the harmony in member relationships.

In real life, team work success rarely happens by itself, without focused team building efforts and activities. There is simply too much space for problems. For example, different personalities, instead of complementing and balancing each other, may build up conflicts. Or even worse, some people with similar personalities may start fighting for authority and dominance in certain areas of expertise. Even if the team goals are clear and accepted by everyone, there may be no team commitment to the group goals or no consensus on the means of achieving those goals: individuals in the team just follow their personal opinions and move in conflicting directions. There may be a lack of trust and openness that blocks the critical communication and leads to loss of coordination in the individual efforts. And on and on. This is why every team needs a good leader who is able to deal with all such team work issues.

Here are some additional team building ideas, techniques, and tips you can try when managing teams in your situation.

• Make sure that the team goals are totally clear and completely understood and accepted by each team member.
• Make sure there is complete clarity in who is responsible for what and avoid overlapping authority. For example, if there is a risk that two team members will be competing for control in certain area, try to divide that area into two distinct parts and give each more complete control in one of those parts, according to those individual’s strengths and personal inclinations.
• Build trust with your team members by spending one-on-one time in an atmosphere of honesty and openness. Be loyal to your employees, if you expect the same.
• Allow your office team members build trust and openness between each other in team building activities and events. Give them some opportunities of extra social time with each other in an atmosphere that encourages open communication. For example in a group lunch on Friday. Though be careful with those corporate team building activities or events in which socializing competes too much with someone’s family time.
• For issues that rely heavily on the team consensus and commitment, try to involve the whole team in the decision making process. For example, via group goal setting or group sessions with collective discussions of possible decision options or solution ideas. What you want to achieve here is that each team member feels his or her ownership in the final decision, solution, or idea. And the more he or she feels this way, the more likely he or she is to agree with and commit to the decided line of action, the more you build team commitment to the goals and decisions.
• When managing teams, make sure there are no blocked lines of communications and you and your people are kept fully informed.

Even when your team is spread over different locations, you can still maintain effective team communication.

• Be careful with interpersonal issues. Recognize them early and deal with them in full.
• Don’t miss opportunities to empower your employees. Say thank you or show appreciation of an individual team player’s work.
• Don’t limit yourself to negative feedback. Be fare. Whenever there is an opportunity, give positive feedback as well.

Finally, though team work and team building can offer many challenges, the pay off from a high performance team is well worth it.

Category : General