2 min read

Dec 6, 2024

Team Building activities are popular opportunities for leaders and team members to practise communication, decision-making, and conflict resolution in a collaborative setting, a step removed from their day-to-day workplace and responsibilities. Operated alongside a coaching and leadership development programme, team building activities are the perfect arena for developing teamship in your organisation.

Coaching and Teambuilding

Working with a corporate teambuilding consultant or team coach can help you get the best value and results from your team building activities and coaching sessions. Through guided reflections and goal setting exercises, activities can establish clear expectations for your leaders and teams, build positive communication norms, and establish decision-making protocols that can be deployed back in the workplace.

Your corporate team building coach will help ensure that the insights gained in your team building activities are directly connected to your teams’ individual and collective work objectives. Consultants will bring their expertise to the table in creating challenging but safe environments in which your teams can push their boundaries, explore their relationships with their colleagues, and cultivate psychological safety, thereby learning to overcome the mental barriers that keep them from innovative solutions.

How team building and coaching can shape team dynamics

1. Assumptions: Unspoken assumptions and preconceived notions that team members hold about each other, their roles, their projects, and leadership, frequently underpin team interactions and decision-making processes. Team coaches can use various approaches to unravel and challenge assumptions, such as the blindfold challenge in which participants are blindfolded and must rely on verbal instructions from their colleagues to complete a task. This fun and often surprisingly challenging activity drives home the importance of clear communication and challenges the assumptions that colleagues may have about each other’s abilities.

2. Trust: Mutual trust is the foundation of any productive team, and a lack of trust can quickly undermine collaboration, leading to conflict and inefficiency. Teambuilding activities can strengthen trust between colleagues and leaders through a variety of methods. For example, in coaching sessions, a corporate team building consultant can create a trust circle, which is a safe space where participants can share personal stories and vulnerabilities in order to boost interpersonal trust. This exercise can create greater empathy and strengthen the relational bonds within a team.

3. Psychological safety: Psychological safety is the belief that an individual can speak up without the risk of humiliation or punishment, and is crucial for encouraging self-initiative, transparent communication, and creativity. Team Building activities can build an environment of psychological safety through round robin discussions and feedback forums in which every team member has given an equal opportunity to speak without interruption, and in which ideas and concerns are expressed without judgement.

4. Behavioural expectations: Clear behavioural guidelines are the ethical framework for harmony and order within your teams, setting the standard for how colleagues communicate and interact. Both direct activities and coaching can contribute to positive behavioural expectations. For example, team members could role-play different scenarios in order to understand their expected behaviours in various situations. This can help to clarify what is expected of each individual in the workplace and how they should conduct themselves – and is especially useful preparation for project delivery under stress.

What Next?

The journey towards building stronger, more cohesive teams begins with understanding how to foster teamship effectively. At Centre for Teams, we specialise in creating tailored team development programmes that transform both the working environment and the dynamics within your team. Whether you’re looking to boost trust, enhance psychological safety, or establish clear behavioural expectations, our team coaches can guide you every step of the way.

Get in touch with us today to explore how we can help your organisation develop meaningful teamship and achieve sustainable success. Let’s work together to unlock your team's potential and shape a collaborative, innovative future.