#teambuilding#experientiallearning#outdoortraining#adventure#games
A team is a living form, full of feelings, emotions, ideas and energy. There are teams that are like shooting stars, they appear and disappear depending on the needs of the moment or the implosion of their elements. And there are teams that are like the sun, the light and heat that they radiate endure over time regardless of the surrounding conditions.
In life there are many different forms of teams, we tend to think, that we work as a team only, when we work in a company or when we belong to a sports team.
Perhaps this is the turning point in our thinking about the concept of "team." I think there are many ways or forms of teamwork; family, friends, neighbourhood meetings, driving in traffic, walking down the street, having coffee in the morning at the corner bar, the relationship with our environment, society in general and our interaction with it produce a constant generation of emotions and feelings that we directly or indirectly transmit to everyone and everything around us. We form a great team with humanity and with the planet earth, and sometimes we forget.
And what relationship does this have with teamwork in our company?
It is difficult to be able to work as a team if we as individuals don't have an approach to our own personal evolution. Teamwork starts from the individual process of self-transformation through observation and reflection, it's a job that implies continuous change and personal development, in order to know how to adapt to different situations and moments. It is important that we know each other well, that we know “who I am, how I am, what I want and what I must change”. The work should start with the ME person, and from this point, it is easier to adapt to the needs and demands of the environment that surrounds us. Observation and reflection lead us to a wiser learning.
All companies work by objectives and each company's department has a specific objective to meet, the question is how do you live and develop the fulfilment of those objectives? Even today and in many companies, teams tend to be seen as, rather hostile crowds, where individualistic work and the achievement of my objectives or the objectives of my department take precedence over the global objectives of the company.
A contradictory feeling is then produced, on one hand, the imminent need to work as a team and on the other hand the encouragement to fulfil isolated objectives. The teams and consequently the people who form them, need to further develop their emotional sensitivity, to adapt to the constant changes and demands that are experienced in the business world, especially now in these times where the COVID pandemic forces us to work in small teams or remotely in isolation.
Despite the competitiveness, however, there is a great need for cooperation, and to share the values and ideas that each and every one of the team members have, there is an inherent need to become more human, vulnerable and sensitive. During the team building and cohesion processes that I have facilitated, the participants live the real experience that it is possible to work as a team with higher quality relations and in a more fun and constructive way, they recognize themselves as strong, intuitive, creative teams that can organize themselves much better than they currently do.
This happens because, the teambuilding seminar creates a safe space to recognize, see and listen to the person in front of you, their virtues, their shortcomings, their difficulties, their doubts and their problems. By recognizing our own vulnerability it is easier to identify what needs to be improved and how others can help me. It is when the team spirit really appears and the beginning of an extraordinary and effective team is born.
After the adrenaline rush of the training, the dilemma arises when they return to the company and in a short time resume to the old customs or habits of individuality. This usually happens for several reasons, first, the lack of leadership with the necessary personality and charisma, that knows how to sustain the constructive and vulnerable space that was created, and second, the lack of personal self-leadership to be individually self-responsive and responsible to use the learnings discovered during the training.
It is for this reason that the work with teams must also start from individual work, which encourages self-responsibility and also demands responsibility from others to sustain and promote change. Training in companies dedicated to personal transformation should be seen a continuous process spaced out over time, that allows people to fully develop in all areas.
How can Experiential Learning help the development of a team?
A team should be, a space for personal growth and development, where each person develops their professional vocation with the utmost enthusiasm and motivation. All companies can and should generate these spaces for training and human development, where the person is taken into account not only as a productive element of the chain but also as an element that generates added value.
The more motivated a person is, the more enthusiasm he generates around him, this joy or proactiveness feeling spreads like wildfire and generates a great force of attraction. This force generates the great potential for sales and profits, the ultimate goal of each and every one of the companies that exist in the world.
We have to take action and this is what we propose to all the company teams that hire us, for this reason, we use games and challenges as dynamic elements of all our training processes, it is what we call "learning through experience”. For 1 or 2 days we jump on the unbeaten path into different initiatives and games that lead us through many of the relational experiences that we have every day with our working colleagues of our team, we create the necessary spaces to dialogue, feel, express and discover new ways. to understand and communicate. Above all we realize that it is possible to work as a team and it is also more profitable and healthy.
It is surprising how the game becomes a vehicle that transports us through a path with a landscape full of rich nuances, from laughter to "I can't, this is impossible" the journey becomes short but intense and the participant has the opportunity to live experiences that you can transfer in an easy and recognizable way to the day to day, of your team and your work. We are all wise by nature, the only thing is that sometimes that wisdom is asleep, you just have to wake it up.
With the permission of the team and of each one of the people that make it up, we immerse ourselves in those areas that need to be worked on, we try not to stay in the most superficial aspects, we always encourage the team to work and to recognize themselves in their strengths and weaknesses. . From here we help the team draw up an action plan that helps both the individual and the team to develop new ways of working as a team. From here each member has to train and practice these new skills, taking them to action, at work, in order to integrate them and create spaces that generate well-being.
Change means working with perseverance, recognizing mistakes on time, rectifying and getting back on track. We can all change and we can all achieve it, we all want to be part of a great sun that gives light, warmth and joy.
Article was written by Robert Brown. Facilitator and Coach.
I am an International Facilitator specialising in team building and personal transformation, I work in Madrid, Spain, as well as other countries in Europe and Thailand.
If you are interested in my content or organizing a teambuilding event or Coaching process, feel free to contact me through my website. Thanks so much.