Teambuilding
PHOTOS: COURTESY OF CISCO, COURTESY OF TEAMBUILDING INC., COURTESY OF ODYSSEY TEAMS
How can staffers in satellite offices stay connected? When employees are scattered across the country, creating the sense that you’re all part of one team can be a challenge. But there are various tactics—and technologies—that can help create bonds among far-flung staffers. At Cisco’s offices in San Jose, California, Angie Smith, the company’s senior manager of global sales experience and global sales operations, designed a virtual meeting attended by more than 19,000 employees in 100 countries in 2009. Rather than attend a company-wide meeting in Las Vegas, employees worked in teams to solve clues in a virtual game held in conjunction with the meeting’s online sessions. “The games were tied to Cisco messaging and content,” Smith says. “There were 13,000 [people] involved in the gaming…they collaborated across the world and tried to solve clues in the alternate reality game. It was just insane.” For this year’s meeting, Cisco created another virtual game, but the meeting itself wasn’t held entirely online. Rather, employees gathered at offices around the world in August and connected to a virtual meeting platform to participate in general sessions. Kimball Fisher, whose Portland, Oregon-based consulting firm, the Fisher Group, trains companies like Hewlett-Packard and IBM on teambuilding techniques, suggests working teambuilding into weekly meetings. “You’ve got to create the virtual water cooler experience for people,” he says. “It’s really important you have a regular time that you get together—either over a Web conference or a teleconference—and that you take some time at every one of those meetings to get to know each other a little bit.” “I’m working with a client at IBM who has 65 direct reports. Before their regular conference call he will interview three to five people and
find out some interesting things about them that other people would not know, then he will ask the others to guess who he’s describing,” Fisher says. Cisco employees ny has flown in employees “It takes maybe 10 around the world from other cities for an anminutes, but he reports bonded by playing nual field day in the fall. But that investing that bit “The Threshold,” a the interaction starts when of time helps people do virtual reality game. they’re still spread out: Emthings they would norployees volunteer to be team captains mally do if they were face to face.” and a draft day is held one month Of course, getting people in the prior to the event. “Once the teams same room always helps, if you can are drafted, each team develops an afford it. To create a feeling of conidentity,” Castellano says. “The day of nectedness among employees at Switch, a St. Louis-based experiential the event is a competition. There are marketing firm with offices in Atlanta, a series of eight events—physical, Phoenix, and Dallas, chief creative of- intellectual, and social challenges. It’s ficer Ann Castellano says the compa- a really good time.”
New Activities
On the evening before the event, Switch conducts a company-wide meeting and each team is given a 30-second spot to introduce themselves. At the end of the competition, prizes are awarded to the top three teams and a spirit award is given to the group that demonstrates outstanding creativity, sportsmanship, and enthusiasm. “It’s so well worth the investment,” Castellano says. “The stories made that day live on throughout the year.” —Susan O’Neill
An Odyssey playhouse
These nationwide teambuilding programs provide ways for staffers to learn something new, have fun, and be philanthropic.
Team Samurai teaches staffers the basics of martial arts. Teambuilding Inc. (888.672.1120, teambuildinginc. com) connects martial arts to the workplace in its new program “Team Samurai: The Art of Teamwork.” Instructors use martial arts as a metaphor for work-related topics such as flexibility, focus, communication, and leadership. Participants also learn the basics of meditation, chi, and the mind states of martial arts, and how they relate to personal habits and work. The program can last a full or half day, and prices range from $3,500 to $7,500.
For an activity with a charitable tie-in, Chico, California-based Odyssey Teams (800.342.1650, odysseyteams.com) offers the Playhouse Challenge. Teams of 10 build children’s play spaces from kits, adding custom paint jobs and decorative window and door designs. Odyssey Teams donates them to local children’s shelters, hospitals, and schools. The exercise runs about six hours and includes pre- and post-activity discussions led by a facilitator. The project requires a minimum of 50 people; prices start at $175 per person. —Lisa Cericola
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