Challenge By Choice and Resistance to Team Building 2
This should placate any ‘resistant’ members of your team who are resisting based on physical or mental reasons. In saying that however, the team building facilitators, and your team, should encourage all team members to participate to their fullest in every activity.
Next, being told you’re coming on a team building day, without knowing too much about it, can leave people in a number of different mind sets. The most common being;
The “Bring It On” Mind Set – This person is looking forward to being challenged and having a great day out with their colleagues. This person will have a great day.
The “We’ll See What Happens” Mind Set– This person needs more information and will make up their mind when they see what it is all about. This person may or may not have a great day. It all depends on how they react to what occurs.
The “Oh No, Not One Of These Things” Mind Set – This person may resist enjoying the day and the activity. They may even try to get others to buy into their “oh no” attitude. They may not have a good day (or at least may not show that they did!).
The way our facilitators brief the event, run the event and the event itself are superb in terms of shifting some of the ‘Oh No’s’ and ‘We’ll Sees’ to the ‘Bring It On’ space. We estimate 98.2% of participants end up in the Bring It On category
Our advice is also to tell your team what they’ll be doing. Sounds simple but, often times, teams are left in the dark as to what they’re going to be doing for their ‘team building’.
Sometimes keeping the event ’secret’ is necessary and that’s totally cool but, if it’s not, then let your team know a few days out from the event.
We have found that, when teams have an idea of what they will be doing beforehand, they come to the event more mentally prepared, more physically prepared and more competitive.
By pre-warning your team members, you can allay fears about their ability to do it and start building team momentum and anticipation even before the event starts.