Ask Questions > Team Building
Apologies for slowness. All LS are team building activities. Not sure this rant will help you. When asked to team building, I ask the leader (with a smile), "does this mean you want to me to do something with the group that has very little relationship to solving a problems or developing an innovation?" If the answer is "yes," I suggested we can build up the team by addressing challenges with all voices included in shaping next steps. "Nothing builds a team more than making progress on shared challenges."
December 1, 2021 |
Keith McCandless
Keith McCandless
I am a beginner in LS and could use some ideas for a specific section of an upcoming session.
Session includes Day 1 late afternoon 2 to 3 hours breaks included, followed by an informal dinner. Day 2 is 8 am to 4:30 pm with lunch and breaks. Target Group is 50 mid-level mangers with their 6 VPs. Company Presidents, a few corporate executives, and staff will also be there. They come from multiple states and work for multiple subsidiary companies. Most have never met each other but they work in similar businesses and jobs.
Day 2 is pretty well thought out and includes a CEO briefing, briefings by the 5 company presidents followed by a Q&A session. There will then be a briefing on the updated corporate strategy and breakout groups to evaluate whether the current strategies are sufficient to meet the goals or they need to develop additional strategies (after this meeting).
We were planning to use TRIZ/Creative Destruction for the opening activity on Day 1. Due to circumstances beyond their control, the key executive needed to do this is not available. So Day 1 plan is now scrapped. I have been asked to come up with a team-building activity. These are finance and engineering types. Very bright, capable some are change adverse. Not into anything they perceive as "touchy-feely HR stuff". Most have experience with facilitated sessions and will cooperate. Due to the nature of their businesses, huge change is a constant. In this case, the transition is for this level staff being asked to get more involved in understanding and executing strategy.
I am reading various approaches to LS and recognize that in some way all of them help with team building. However, I can't find any that specifically cite team building as the primary focus.
All thoughts and suggestions, greatly appreciated.