Build your team, build your success

Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing….Red7 offers a wealth of team-building activities to get the best from your biggest asset.  

 

If you think ‘team building ‘ is just a buzzword, or a team jolly, read on!  Fresh air. Healthy competition. Shouting and screaming (in a good way!) and getting properly worn out before falling into bed after a few end of day beers! Nothing beats a good, old fashioned team building ‘day’ out.  By getting out of a familiar work environment, you can break down interpersonal barriers and eliminate the usual distractions of the office. 

Giving everyone the opportunity to leave their normal work environment and interact with each other in a completely different setting can also help them think differently and, of course, help them improve personal and professional skills. 

Another huge advantage company away days offer is the fact that you’ll be able to tap into your team’s hidden potential!  With everyone relaxed, away from emails and phone calls, you will find out so much more about each individual. They’ll demonstrate skills and traits that perhaps haven’t been obvious before.  

Some believe that away days are a luxury and not a necessity. However, team building is invaluable, especially because it promotes better work relationships, offers a shared positive experience that your employees will talk about for a very long time, and allows people to better understand where their strengths and weakness lie. 

In 1965 Bruce Tuckman identified four stages of group development. Forming a team takes time, and members often go through recognizable stages as they change from being a collection of strangers to a united group with common goals. Tuckman’s Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing model describes these stages. When you understand it, you can help your new team become effective more quickly – or ‘fix’ and reinvigorate an established team.  ‘Structured’ conflict is a great way to create a survival of the fittest atmosphere, to create energy and motivation – as well as a strong ‘them and us’ situation to fire up your teams!  And, of course, by rewarding your employees with the gift of an away day, they’ll feel that you and the company cares for them. 

The perfect team-building activities should be combined with great accommodation, delicious food and bars or nightlife to unwind; it’s not all ‘work’!  And, a UK (or European) away day doesn’t have to cost a fortune, and the return on investment will be considerable.  

From sports to mind-games, team-building activities breakdown barriers and create safe ‘pressure’ and healthy and constructive competitive environments.  

At Red7, we’ve been organising epic group travel for over 30 years. So, if you want to get out of the training room and into action, get in touch and let’s create something amazing together for your teams!  

Here are some of the most popular activities:- 

Bubble football 

This is SO much fun (and totally silly at the same time!). Jump in to an oversized inflatable outfits and become an instant sumo superstar.  You will have lots of fun bouncing around trying to navigate the ball, defend the goal and beat your opponents in this fun crazy game.  Bubble football is sweeping the country by storm, your team will love being part of this craze for an experience they won’t forget. 

Escape Rooms 

Immersive role-playing games have grown in popularity in recent years. Players are “locked” inside a room and tasked with solving the room’s mystery within a set amount of time. Once they solve the mystery or reach the end of the time limit, they are “set free.” Escape rooms make great bonding experiences. All players must work together to solve the mystery. For that reason, they are very popular for team building. Why not try Brighton’s newest attraction: Phileas Fogg’s World of Adventures – travel around the world in 80 days accompanied by Mr Fogg where the challenges combine with an interactive, immersive theatrical experience.  

Paintball 

The great thing about paintballing is that it’s a wonderful ‘leveller’ – it doesn’t need any particular sporting ability, and it’s possible for men and women, as well as people of all ages and all levels of fitness to participate on an equal footing.  And, no, it’s not dangerous and it doesn’t hurt!   

Watersports 

If you’re looking for excitement, challenge and enjoyment then you need look no further than a visit to Southampton. The range and quality of activities is exceptional and irrespective of your length of stay will provide a memorable experience. Try one of the exciting and challenging activities from windsurfing, canoeing, dinghy sailing, and kayaking.  

Old School, Sports Day 

What better way to spend time with colleagues than taking part in an old school sports day experience? Turn the clock back to a time when life was less stressful and all you had to worry about was having fun. Relive the excitement of the sack race and the skill of the egg and spoon race and have a lot of fun while you’re doing it. An old school sports day is a great way to escape the rigours of the modern world. 

Cocktail Making 

After a day being shaken, stirred and – we hope – invigorated, why not learn a new skill in the evening with your very own personal Cocktail Maker. Learn the skills, sample the goods and have a laugh along the way.  

And, what NOT to do….Close encounters of the cringeworthy kind – team-building horror stories and how to avoid them! 

The top five terrible team-building blunders are: 

1. The purge: don’t try this at work.

Brutal honesty is not the best company policy. A popular method of getting staff to bond is by asking them to reveal what they really think of one another. A common yet misguided activity involves co-workers saying one positive thing and one negative thing to each-other – to their faces, in front of the entire team. Unfortunately, this kind of activity often ends in tears as people are far more likely to listen to the negative criticism then they are the positives. 

2. Snakes on a… conference call?

On one hand, there’s tedious trust exercises and long days in the boardroom, on the other there’s snakes, tarantulas, scorpions, centipedes and (sorry) giant cockroaches. Available as a professional service, these team-building exercises involve an animal handler leading the office through a nerve-wracking workshop designed to confront fear. 

There are many reasons that this exercise won’t work – most will refuse to take part and those willing to handle the creepy crawlies will quickly turn the workshop into a competitive sport, which defies the point of team building. 

3. Invasion of the body snatchers!

Any activity should respect the personal space of everyone involved – if colleagues wanted to get touchy feely, they wouldn’t need a team-building day in the first place! Activities that involve getting up close and personal with a co-worker should be strictly prohibited. The trust fall is too cliché to even consider, but some companies have gone much, much further to bring their employees close together. One company opted to have their staff exchange mouthfuls of fizzy drink. That’s right, they literally had to spit the beverage into one another’s mouth. Pretty disgusting if you ask… well, anyone. 

4. Drag me to A&E…

Nothing screams ‘model employee’ louder than going into anaphylactic shock for the sake of participation. Unappetizing bowls of ‘finger food’ are the expected fare at any corporate away day. Whilst some employees might love munching on peanuts and Bombay mix, these snacks can have deadly consequences as over 20% of the population suffers from an allergy. One company asked staff to hold hands (ugh, see above!) after consuming peanuts. This kind of bonding activity can have fatal repercussions for allergy sufferers. 

5. The descent.

The Descent, The Cave, The Cavern, As Above, So Below, The Ruins… how many horror films about cave diving even are there? Anyone that’s up on film will be more than wary of jumping into a cave, as will the estimated 5-7% of the global population that suffers from claustrophobia. 

Team members may feel pressured into going along with the plan, despite having a phobia, and end up in a situation that they find terrifying. 

It’s true that extreme activities such as abseiling, white rafter rafting and paintball can be a fun and exhilarating experience for groups, but beware! Consider everyone in the team first – competitive and/or physical endurance activities work best when the team members have similar levels of fitness and competitiveness. These activities can cause a major divide if they become an excuse for more sporty employees to show off and can seriously demotivate their co-workers. 

So, don’t pick an activity that is unhygienic, disgusting, too personal or potentially dangerous, and think twice if your activity of choice is competitive or scary.