The Thing About Team-Building Exercises

 I was fortunate to progress through the Air Force in the 80s/90s, and marginally saw the team-building business introduced (at the very end).  

My original view, as these were introduced....we had teams built and functional already, and it seemed like the people running this agenda....wanted people to talk to each other on a first name basis....drift over to group-think....and have new plans/paths introduced on a regular basis (this meant if X didn't work, you went to Y, and if Y didn't work, you went to Z).

In the eleven years as a contractor....we had a couple of attempts to run team-building, and most failed miserably.  

I brought this topic up one day with a guy who'd spent around four years at some major industry (mid-2000s).  It'd reached a point where the team-building stuff was so crapped out....that his HR gave up local efforts, and started to bring national team-builders (they'd fly the guy out for a whole week).  The problem here....the national guy had no clear understanding of the organization, its service, or it's customers.  

Are we that bad off....to require team-building?  I think the more likely path here is that we are in the midst of a boss-obstruction.  We have people given management roles....who are simply lacking in skills to perform at this level.  You can blame the college system, or the HR involvement in recruitment for this 'weakness'.

You would think for a master's degree or PhD, in some type of management or leadership area....you'd have gifted instructors for the 'art'.  I simply don't believe they exist to the degree that was around in the 1970s/1980s.  

Shouldn't boards be 'gifted' enough to shape a CEO to the degree required?  Well....we got to the point of bringing in idiots to boards (like that Hunter 'kid') and boards are mostly today useless.

So to make up for the problem....we shape team-building to show that if they think in x-way.....the product or service will be successful.  

I'm not calling team-building as a BS tool....but you are supposed to think/react in a certain way at the end.

On how to handle team-building...if you get forced into it?  Simply play along.....smile, and accept the fact that they can't fix the boss problem.  

(On my most favorite team-building event participation?  My boss took the entire shop to a horse-track and instructed us on betting.  It actually was a great afternoon, but had nothing to do with work.)