Article: “Why team-building exercises are useless (and what you should do instead)”

[Originally posted on Facebook, 22 Jul 2019]



Article by Julien Pollack and Peter Matous, Fast Company, 20 Jul 19

Putting aside the clickbait-y nature of the article’s title, one will discover on further reading that the authors are not speaking an entirely different language to those who conduct adventure-based experiential team building (or bonding) programmes or activities. The authors write:

It’s about understanding that teams are social networks built on connections between individuals. It involves deep one-on-one conversations, designed to get people out of their comfort zones.
Adventure-based programme facilitators understand that the outdoors is the great social equaliser - participants are impelled into forging social connections that are in their interest to nurture for the duration of the programme and better yet, after it has ended.

The article also says:

Research suggests psychological safety is crucial in the work environment... Team members need to talk regularly and be comfortable raising difficult issues. Feeling able to make a mistake and express oneself freely improves team performance and the ability to innovate.

Adventure-based programmes by definition offer uncertain outcomes, especially due to factors beyond reasonable human control. However, a well-facilitated programme will encourage emotional, or psychological safety and allow participants the space to shape their destiny as it were, and to take ownership of the consequences, desirable or otherwise. The authors go on to say that “building psychological safety takes time” - again, adventure programme facilitators understand very well the need to provide adequate time and structured programming for participants to form positive and constructive interpersonal relationships.

The authors then propose a method to enhance the forming of ‘social networks’ within a given team, saying that “well-designed team-building should target and strengthen relationships that are for some reason too weak.”

These social networks can be analysed by asking team members this disarmingly simple question: “How often or how comfortable are you talking to each member of your team?” and offering a list of suggested questions, with increasing level of sensitivity or intimacy.

At the risk of oversimplifying the authors’ proposed strategy, their method is something many adventure programme facilitators would have done as part of the ice-breaking process when a new group of participants come together at the beginning of a programme: have the participants ask each other questions. Who has not felt a connection, bond or sense of kinship upon discovering some common ground or interest with another person? This is arguably the most important precondition for communication to take place and a relationship to form.

The article mentions some research done in 1997 that showed “feelings of interpersonal closeness are cultivated by disclosing personal details.” Again, in my personal experience, adventure-based programmes (particularly those of longer duration or which deal with at-risk populations) are effective at helping to achieve this. Consider those times when a participant fails to achieve success at scaling a rock wall; or when participants shows anxiety or even fear in the face of an oncoming storm while out on a sea kayaking expedition. Of course, this is not to say that bonding is solely promoted by negative circumstances.

The article includes some graphs detailing the progress a particular team makes, using the strategy ‘social network analysis’ as proposed by the authors.

The authors acknowledge that “for some, there is a clear line between work life and personal life. Not everyone feels comfortable with talking about personal issues, let alone with colleagues to whom they’re not close. It’s true that rapid personal disclosure can be risky.”

Certainly, the challenge lies in determining the appropriate pace and nature of the questions such that as many team members as possible will feel their comfort zone get larger. For example, if Team Member X had yet to form a bond with Team Member Y, and the former asked a banal question like what Y had for breakfast, Y might still be disinclined to answer (and may even be put on the defensive).

Any adventure-based programme facilitator knows the importance of progressive, intentional and considered activities that encourage participants to form appropriate relationships with others, so that their desired outcomes have the best chance of materialising, with the necessary resilience to weather the inevitable obstacles that will surface along the way.