My friend said we should organize a Team Building (team building activity). I don't think there is a need because our high school friends are already a team. We have known each other for more than 20 years and understand each other very well. My friend's wife said after the wedding that we were the strongest brotherhood she had ever seen. Everyone seems unreliable, but everything could be solved when we joined together. Therefore, what we need is not Team Building, but group activities. 

Team Building is such a nice term. Who doesn't want to build an outstanding team? Many companies will hire professional organizations for training. Many courses are fished in troubled water. Employees need to spend the whole day with the training cost HKD 10,000, to let employees understand that "communication is really important." Everyone understands this but does not mean we know how to do it. It is better not to join if you don’t treat it as a normal extra-curricular activity for staff. 

However, I think Team building is needed. Just not by outsiders but internally. To conclude, Team Building is to strengthen the chemistry between the team. And Team Building is to provide a platform so that everyone can construct some connections outside of work. 

I am accustomed to dividing Team Building into two types, inside and outside the department. Let’s talk about the inside department first. The Team Building within the department is very simple. Just look for interesting activities and have fun. As long as everyone communicates sincerely in the process, the effect has been achieved. A happy team can improve the empathy of colleagues, treat the team's problems as their own, and help each other in the same boat. You may also invite a small number of people outside the department to participate so that you can also enhance cross-department communications in the future. 

Outside the department is more complicated, thinking about the direction from the perspective of the enterprise, treat it as the working communication. Companies that use the Weak Matrix to deal with projects require such exchanges because they often cooperate with people outside the department. 

Participants of this type of Team Building are not familiar with each other, so when participating in the activities, they will not be regarded as playtime. If this is held outside of working hours, they will feel resistant to this. The activities should be arranged within working hours so that they understand this is part of the job. 

Before setting up Team Building, we must be clear about our goals. There can be many goals such as integrating new colleagues into the company faster, strengthening the chemistry between the core team, breaking the gap between management and staff, cultivating the second echelon of the company, and uniting the whole company. 

In response to different goals, we need to think about how to proceed. For example, the goal is to "break the gap between the management and the staff." As the age group is relatively wide, the design of the event must highlight the characteristics of different ages and increase everyone's understanding, for example, activities like sand table deduction. 

Although the format is not that important, its content still needs to meet some effects before Team Building can be established. This is to make participants understand what effective communication is. Effective communication should be with honest opinions, non-sentimental arguments, ways to reach consensus, and shared results. At the same time, the participants should also understand that the choice of silence to avoid disputes is wrong and they will be responsible to act like this. 

The last important point is that the activity must have the role of an observer, record the behaviour during the process, and tell the participants after the activity, let the team members share their feelings about this behaviour to allow the person to reflect. The advantage of Team Building is that it can jump out of our usual profession and purely focus on the communication problems of each person. Even if the problem cannot be solved immediately, at least they knew each other’s characteristics better and were able to make correct adjustments in their work corporation afterwards. 

By the way, if the activity is aimed at the whole company union, it is more similar to holding a festival. As long as the colleagues participate in the activity, it will be effective. But it needs to be creative so that employees of all levels can truly enjoy it.

Simon So Head of Digital Marketing