Zoom! Training for Professional Team Building Facilitators

Team Development is an ongoing process and the most benefit comes from frequently returning to ‘the learning environment’ that is created during your team building session.  Hiring a professional team building provider is one way to continuously recreate the learning environment.  Another excellent way is to learn how to facilitate the team development yourself.  We encourage organizations that want to continue to develop their teamwork to take part in a ‘Train the Trainer” program.  During our Facilitator Training Program your team will deconstruct the team development process, learning tips and techniques that focus on:

• Trust (laying a foundation for openness and understanding that will allow participants to take risks)
• Conflict (gaining comfort with engaging in unfiltered discussion around important topics)
• Commitment (achieving buy-in for decisions made by the team)
• Accountability (willingness to confront one another about performance and behavioral concerns)
• Results (valuing collective outcomes more than individual recognition).

NEXTeams Team Development

The culmination of a typical recreational team building program is the foundation of trust. As we build trust, we are able to improve our communication, rely on other members of our team, and ultimately take risks that we might otherwise avoid. The NEXTeams Process seeks to accelerate the foundation of trust, and thus create an environment in which teams can optimize their performance, and achieve their outcomes.

The NEXTeams Process

• Step One — challenge participants to get to the root of their ‘organizational identity’ and learn new ways to enhance that self-conception. The goal is to get everyone on the same page about purpose – the Real Mission of the organization.

• Step Two — invite participants to explore their role within the organization – not only their job title and responsibilities, but the potential benefits that they can offer to the organization as a whole – the Personal Identities within the organization.

• Step Three — give participants a task to accomplish – exemplified through traditional ‘team building challenges.’ The goal is to show through tangible experience the interdependence of the group – the TEAM within the organization.

• Step Four — focus on transferring the lessons learned in the initial program, back to the ‘real world’ of their day-to-day organizational function. Simple steps the leadership can take to encourage cross-communication, innovation, an environment of openness in the team – the TEAM Environment within the organization.

• Step Five — Following the initial four-step process, NEXTeams will be available for follow-up consultations and recurring “FLUX Re-Energizers.” – a chance to get together in the learning environment and check-in about things that are working and things that need more attention.

Team Service Project

During a traditional team building program, your team reaps the rewards of your hard teamwork, learning to work together more effectively and benefiting from new-found trust and commitment.  One of the best ways to make this teamwork benefit others is through the implementation of a team service project.

Team Service Projects combine traditional team building activities (getting to know you, problem solving and trust activities) with a community service construction or maintenance project.

Your team will spend the first part of the program with team challenge activities that will help get them ready to work together.  The second part of the event will give your team a chance to put their new teamwork skills to work with participation in a small construction or maintenance project.

Sample Team Service Projects:

Bridge Building – construct a two-log, hand-railed creek crossing in a local park

Shed Construction – build a tool shed at a local farm

Trail Blazing – create a new trail that joins two areas together

and more…

Trapeze Leap

Participants in a ROPES Challenge Course spend the bulk of their time focusing on building a high performance team, and then top-off the experience with an additional ‘high element.’ The high element is an individual challenge (you are the only person who is relying on your decision to either participate-or not participate.), which is supported with the help of the other members of your team. An example of a typical high ropes challenge course element is:

The Trapeze Leap – or ‘Leap of Faith’

After being strapped into a full-body harness and a helmet, you are attached to a safety rope suspended from a cable 30 feet over your head. When your facilitator signals the “OK” you begin to climb up the ‘staple climb’ that circles the tree, and step up onto a platform high above the ground. Now is the moment of truth – you must decide whether you will come back down with a ‘leap of faith’ or whether you will climb back down the staples you just went up.

The Minefield

Not every team building effort is the same – we try to tailor a team development program that suits the expected outcomes of each individual group, and some groups just want to have FUN!

For groups looking for the fun and challenge of experience-based team activities, minus the depth and goal-oriented focus of a traditional team development program, we have created the Team Building DIY (Do It Yourself Team Building).

Power Circle

For teams whose goal is a traditional team building program with a combination of physical and and mental challenges, the Mobile Team Challenge provides a great deal of flexibility.

Designed to be completely portable, our facilitators will bring a selection of our most popular team building challenges to your facility, or to a location of your choosing – either indoors or outdoors.  Every activity is easily adaptable to the goals of your group, and can be developed as a stand alone event, or as part of a larger team development effort.

A typical Mobile Team Challenge is comprised of a combination of the following types of team challenge:

• Getting to Know You Activities

• Deinhibitizing Activities

• Problem-solving Initiatives

• Trust Activities

Depending on the goals of the group, the Mobile Team Challenge can be designed as a recreational team building event (just for fun) or as a more sophisticated team development program with specific outcomes (goals-oriented).  Either way, the program will be both fun and challenging.

The objectives of the RACE Day Team Builder is for teams to design, construct, brand and race a wooden soapbox derby vehicle.  During this timed challenge teams will focus on collaboration, from the design process and look of their vehicle to the way they market their brand.  This unique team building event is fast-paced, packed with hands-on action, and sure to bring teams together the way only a friendly competition can.