Team Building For Purpose is an amazing way to build rapport with members of a company and strategic partners in your industry. It is a way to discover things about your team members or strategic partners on a personal level that you would not know about them through your work only relationship. Team Building creates opportunities for problem solving that highlight effectiveness through collaboration.
Facilitated correctly, team building will create an atmosphere of openness and vulnerability across all levels of the team. It is a priority to create a safe place to share thoughts and ideas without the threat of humiliation or repercussion for team building to be a productive event with a positive outcome. 
Executives and Senior Managers should be involved in planning the event to be all inclusive giving consideration to the interest of the event regarding location, activities and physical limitations of the participants.
Team Building for Purpose will inspire action and have long lasting impact on the health of the team. Team members will become aware of ideas and engage in a collaborative effort for improvement. Relationships will be strengthened through intentional activities that are fun, challenging, and interactive.
Team Building can be as simple as a 1-hour activity around the company conference table to as complex as a weekend retreat with several activities scheduled over a few days. Regardless of the length of the event it should be designed with a specific purpose in mind. A purpose that will move the team in a direction of growth and development while establishing and improving relationships.
Ideas for Team Building Events:
On-site Events…
Games:
There are hundreds if not thousands of examples of icebreakers, brain teasers, scavenger hunts, etc., which can be found via an internet search. These activities can be facilitated in the office, in the parking lot or at a public park. These are very inexpensive ways to engage your team in and encourage growth. I offer the John Maxwell Leadership Game as a team building event for purpose.
Facilitated Workshops:
Workshops can be customized to meet an objective and to achieve results that are sustainable. Roundtable sessions with input from all participants creates an engaging experience for everyone to feel included in the process. Vision boards and placards can be utilized to capture ideas and encourage participation.
Offsite Events:
Offsite events have the advantage of getting everyone away from the distractions of work and focused on the team building event.
I have had success facilitating the following offsite events:
Escape Room:
Escape Rooms allow a team to work together to crack a code and move on to the next level. A leader or facilitator can monitor the progress of a team and see the skills of each team member working together. Most Escape Rooms have fast clues that are found quickly and other clues that take real thought and problem-solving skills to analyze the information for an accurate solution to the puzzle. The team will need to exercise communication skills and play off each other’s strengths to solve the puzzle and escape the room.
Locally I have a partnership with Lakeland Escape Room to facilitate team building events with them.
Sporting Clays:
This team building event can seem daunting and even frightening to some individuals, however with proper orientation and strict adherence to course safety rules even a beginner can have a great time and learn to enjoy the challenge of shooting sporting clays. This event is trial and error at it’s best, the clays come from different angles at different speeds and the always variable wind. Teams keep score and compete against each other as well as a collective score of the team competing against the group. I like to use the having a target leadership lesson when facilitating these events.
TopGolf:
Team Building at Topgolf can be a mix of socializing, corporate training and interactive, friendly competition. Food and beverage are readily available as you compete individually with your team and corporately with your group.
These are just a few suggestions for adding Team Building to your leadership toolbox. This is one of the greatest ways to make a team feel engaged and appreciated.
If you need help planning your event Build Consulting is ready to help plan and facilitate an event that inspires action from your team.