What Is the Best Way to Improve Teamwork?

A friend of mine recently returned from a corporate retreat to Ibiza, Spain.  She works for a large international corporation and each year, in the name of team building, she and her colleagues go to an exotic destination.

“How was your trip?” I asked. “Was teamwork developed?”

“We stayed at the nicest place, ate at the most expensive restaurants. There was an open bar every night. It was amazing,” was her answer.

“Did you manage to build connections with your colleagues?  Are people more committed to the organization, and more engaged as a result?  Do you think the cost of this trip was justified, from a shareholder’s perspective?” 

A bit defensively she replied, “Getting drunk with people is good for morale.  People drop their barriers, expose who they are, and this leads to unity and improved teamwork.”

A bit skeptically, I replied, “Do you think things will change when you go back to the office?  Do you think the connection you developed with that guy from accounting you despise so much will last into next month?”

“The guy from accounting? I did not say a word to him the entire trip.  Why would I talk to him? This trip was supposed to be fun,” she answered.

Clearly, these corporate trips are a lot of fun and a great way to reward people. However, are they the best way to develop teamwork? I wondered. Is there a better way?   

I started looking into the alternative approaches.

One alternative approach to team building is the approach outdoor team-building retreats use. If you are not familiar, these outdoor team-building retreats take a management team out of the office and into nature somewhere. They then present the management team with various challenges. Maybe a wall that the team must climb over or a scavenger hunt or puzzle of some kind. They offer many different challenges. The common denominator among all of them is that no individual can overcome them on their own. Only by working together are they able to achieve success, and it is through that achievement that teamwork is developed. And it works. At the end of the day, everyone is singing and hugging. Teamwork seems to be at an all-time high. So, are outdoor team-building retreats the best way to improve teamwork?

Anyone who has been through these out-door team-building retreats will likely say “no” because there are limitations to this approach. While in the short-term, teamwork is improved, in the long-term, the improvement is not sustained. On Monday morning, when those same people return to the office, the euphoria of the retreat will not last.

Why not?

People and Behavior Are Products of Environment 

The outdoor team-building retreat took the management team out of their office environment and into a different environment. Their behavior changed. But now that same management team is back in the office, back in the old environment. How long does it take for them to revert to their old dysfunctional behavior?

What Dr. Adizes, founder of the Adizes Institute and author of countless books on management teaches is that you do not need to take your management team out of the office environment to build teamwork. You do not need to pay an outdoor team-building retreat to provide challenges that no individual can solve on their own. You have plenty of such challenges within your organization. Those challenges are called problems and opportunities, and every organization has them. You can make addressing those problems and opportunities your team-building activity.  This is done by including the management team in the decision-making process, something known as participative management.  

Sure, different people have different self-interests, opinions, and ways of making decisions, so when you include different people in the decision-making process you will have conflict.  However, the solution is not to bury or ignore the conflict, which is what happens on those lavish corporate vacations or at those out-door team-building retreats. Rather, as an author of multiple books management, I  teach that those conflicts can be harnessed and made constructive. Using a systemic approach to problem-solving, information is shared, people learn from each other, and better decisions are made and implemented in good faith. Most importantly, this is all done without undermining the authority of management. This creates team-building in a sustainable way that also contributes to the bottom line. It is a win-win-win.

That is why, from my research, the best way to build teamwork is by harnessing the power of constructive conflict for collaborative problem-solving.