KEYGroup® Current Articles Sports coaching methods can work in corporate team building exercises A few months ago, Ansys Inc. employees were asked to use their noodles. Several six-member teams competed in an event that involved traveling together to different departments to answer questions about the Cecil Township-based maker of design software. For example: How many people work there? Or, what was the stock price on a particular date? All the while, team members had to stick together by holding onto their "noodles," those long bendable foam tubes commonly used for swimming pool fun. "It was a riot," said Ansys spokeswoman Nancy Fisher. "Even our CEO (James Cashman III) was part of it." Although the event was fun and the winners got an extra week's vacation, Ms. Fisher said it was part of a serious mission: team building. "It gets people to work with other departments," she said. "The software developers are upstairs; they come in and write code all day. But this type of activity lets you interact with other employees you don't normally interact with." Ansys also has held pumpkin carving contests, water balloon launches, hula hoop golf games and "Survivor" challenges. It's planning a pinball tournament as soon as the games are installed in the cafeteria. Joanne Sujansky, president and founder of Pittsburgh-based KEYGroup®, said such team-building events are purely social and can benefit workers. "It's a way to get to know each other and better understand each other's value systems," said Ms. Sujansky, whose company offers training and consulting programs. But an even better way to build teams, she said, is to mix work and play. "Creating something where they can do work and do social things is a very good use of company time and money," Ms. Sujansky said. "Even if it's just to accomplish goal-setting for the year, a change can occur in the midst of the social venue." She said that, in the past, companies would send employees on five-day team-building workshops. But in today's faster pace, firms make more use of half-day sessions. And while that is beneficial, team-building must take place constantly. "I have seen organizations spend money on team-building programs, videos," she said. "They make a huge investment, but then everything stays in the closet because something else caught someone's attention." Instead, she said managers must work at team-building internally and consistently. "People tend to celebrate a team's success at the end, say with an awards dinner," she said. "But, people need to see how the team is doing throughout and have accomplishments praised throughout. Monitoring along the way feeds the team." Robert Evangelista, Detroit-based author of "The Business of Winning," agrees and said it's important to observe employees in action and review both failures and accomplishments after the fact, much as sports coaches do. "In business, we reflect on events after they happen if they're bad," he said. "We rarely do autopsies on wins and we almost never autopsy events that are unclear successes or failures. But in sports, they do it for every game." Watching game films, crunching numbers and getting feedback from coaches allows players to learn lessons that are put toward the next game. But, he said it is important to learn from the game after its conclusion. Not, he said, to micromanage and hold employees' hands while they're doing their jobs. "At game time, coaches step back and allow their team to execute," Mr. Evangelista said. "Coaches make observations to use for the next practice. They don't tell players (about their weaknesses) when they come off the ice sweating and out of breath." That type of constructive criticism is held instead for practice, when player development is conducted on three levels: - as a team, promoting the same physical conditioning and goals, * as individual units, drilling the defense and offense on specific plays - and as individuals, instructing each player's specific needs, like blocking or puck handling. "In sports that's obvious," Mr. Evangelista said. Understanding what each player is responsible for starts with a good game plan. The typical business plan starts with a vision and goals, but, he said, that's typically where it ends. In sports, coaches don't make assumptions that players will follow through unaided. "The coach sets an objective and a strategy to get there and then identifies the role of each player, getting into the specific actions that each player has to execute," he said. Business managers can be that specific, too, he says. "The end result is that you have individual employee/players who understand what they have to do, and more importantly, why they have to do it. If you get teams to understand why, then you put them in the position to think and make changes on the fly when obstacles come up without having to come back and ask for help." Mr. Evangelista said the cycle used in coaching easily can be implemented in the business world: "Forming the game plan, developing the players, playing the game and then reviewing the game; then it goes right back to the game plan." This article may be reprinted for your use in an organizational newsletter and or e-zine provided that you contact Kelly Hanna, Director of Sales and Marketing at 724-942-7900 to gain permission. |
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