Retriever Founder & CEO, Peter Scott, sat down with Retriever customer Pip Scott-Allen, the founder and director of Premier Team Building, to gain insights into the world of corporate team building events. Here are some key takeaways from their conversation.
My name’s Pip. I’m the founder and director of Premier Team Building. We do corporate leadership events all across Australia.
Team Building vs. Team Bonding
So why team building over team bonding and what’s the difference?
The difference between team building and team bonding is team bonding is going to be more of that superficial fun stuff. We’re talking about bowling, laser tag, axe throwing, going to the pub. It’s all good fun to bond people, but we’re not developing or building any real skills.
Team building, we’ll still have those elements of team bonding, but they’ll actually translate to real skills within the workforce, be that project management, resource management, budgeting, collaboration between different departments. At the end of our team-building activities, it’s going to make an impact within the workforce, whereas team bonding, chances are if you go to the pub, you’re going to sit with the people you sit with everyday anyways, or engage with those you engage with normally and you’re not going to develop anything new or beneficial for the actual company.
The Recipe for a Great Team-Building Event
What makes a great team-building event?
Something that’s relevant to what the company does. It’s important to figure out goals, objectives, who they are and how they engage with one another and their customers. For example, if we were to be looking at a call centre, they want to work on communication, very broad, but we wouldn’t want to focus on anything that is heavily revolved around body language because they don’t see one another. There’s no physical engagement with customers. We’d want to rely on a verbal communication skill set. And so a good team-building event will be customised to ensure that it’s relevant to who we’re talking about and also relevant for the skills and outcomes that they need. But regardless, it’s going to be a lot of fun for the team.
Memorable Experiences in Team Building
What’s your most memorable experience or outcome from running a team-building event?
Oh, I’ve got a couple of different ones. The one that I’ll never forget, and it’s probably not the outcome most people would expect.
We had a client years ago and the boss came to us and said, “I have all these problems. My team, they’re rude, they don’t communicate well. Issue, issue, issue.”
We did a team-building program, and at the end of all of our programs. we do a health report saying, “Hey, here’s what we saw. Here’s the good, the bad, the ugly.” And at the end of it I said, “All those issues that you raised were not present on the day. The team gets along well, they like one another, they trust each other, they communicate really well together. So all those issues weren’t present.” And the boss was kind of upset by this and I said, “Well, there was one team member who was not present at the events and that could be a reason.”
And the boss was quite upset by someone not turning up, “Who wasn’t there? I told the entire team to go.”
I said, “Well, you were not there. You are saying there’s all these issues. You weren’t there, the issues weren’t present. So I can only assume that there could be an issue between you and them.”
I’ve never had that company back once again. I also found out later that the boss was let go not too long there afterwards. This is a very memorable one. Hopefully that person took that feedback on board and has become a better leader. But it was good to see that their team was really strong, so that would be a good memorable one.
Final Thoughts and Fun Insights
Last question, Star Wars or Star Trek, and which character would you be?
Star Wars or Star Trek. I’m definitely a Star Wars fan, more so than a Trekkie. I love both. I’m actively watching both of those right now. And if I had to go with a character from Star Wars, ooh, that is a good one. There’s two. I would either go Wicket, the Ewok from Return of the Jedi, or there’s another Ewok, I can’t remember his name, but he was actually an X-wing pilot with robotic leg extensions so he can control foot controls. I think a small furry guy is unassuming and they’re definitely a be force to be reckoned with. So those would be the two I’d probably go with.”
If you’d like to make contact with Pip and discuss how he might help build your team feel free to contact him – details below:
Pip Scott-Allen
Director & Lead Facilitator Of Awesome
Premier Team Building
www.premierteambuilding.com.au
T 02 4044 5095 | M 0402 228 411
Team Building Done Right™