When planning teambuilding activities, leadership off-sites, all hands meetings, annual team meetings, strategic retreats and other team events, most people make the following seven fatal mistakes.
(1) The Do-It-Yourself Event, Rather Than Hiring Professionals
We’ve all heard the story of someone trying to fix their own leaky faucet only to end up with a flood in their house.
Or the do it yourself home improvement job that ends up costing twice as much, taking twice as long, coming out wrong, and costing significantly more than it would have if you had hired a truly skilled professional in the first place.
If you needed a surgery or a major medical intervention for a serious condition, what would you do? Operate on yourself? Or go to the Mayo Clinic to find the professional with the most knowledge and experience to help you.
There are movies that joke about a Mom who treated everything with Windex. And there are comedians who joke that they were so poor as kids that their Mom treated everything with Robitussin.
But we all know that most important things should be done by those with expertise & experience.
DIY for important or complex things is virtually always a major mistake.
If your company has a tax issue or a legal issue, do you try to figure it out yourself? Or do you find lawyer or tax accountant to advise you?
If your high performance car has a problem, you don’t tinker under the hood yourself. You take it the expert mechanic who will fix it properly, right?
But for some strange reason, many smart people often make the ill-advised decision to attempt to build their teams on their own – buying books, games or “teambuilding in a box” – often doing more harm than good.
If you want something done right, don’t do-it-yourself.
Hire a professional with the skill, knowledge and experience to do it right.
(2) Buying an Off-the-Shelf, One-Size-Fits-All Program, Rather than Custom Designed & Results-Focused
One size does not fit all. It never has.
When cars were first sold commercially in 1908, Henry Ford said, “They can have any color they want, as long as it’s black.”
And shortly thereafter, Ford and all of its’ competitors began offering models of every color with lots of options and customization – since everyone had different needs and wants.
Today we have everything customized to our specific needs and wants.
Customized clothes, customized cars, customized shoes, made to order customized food – virtually everything.
We even have customized coffee. Back in the day it was black coffee with maybe an option of crème or sugar.
Now, every morning you can choose from 37 different ultra customized coffees which you can further customize just the way you want it – caffe latte, frappachino, macchiato, cappucinio, expresso, americano, iced cafe, blonde cafe, skinny blonde cafe, mocha-choca-latte-ya-ya, the list goes on and on.
If we can put time and effort into customizing our $5 coffee each day, doesn’t it make sense to put though, time and effort into customizing any training, offsite, teambuilding or event for your team?
Your time is too valuable not to focus on results. Simple activities together do NOT drive results.
An expertly skilled facilitator, leading a specific activity in a very specific way, drives results, because that leader teaches specific skills, fosters specific relationships and trigger specific emotions. That’s what builds a team. That’s what improves leadership skills. That’s what improves communication. And that’s what builds trust and cohesiveness.
A customized team development experience is ideal. One size does not fit all.
(3) Focusing On The Activity Or Theme, Rather Than On The Results
Many people often focus on the activity or theme when planning a team offsite or event, rather than starting with the goals or results they need to achieve.
And the activity and theme are certainly an important port of the experience. They are the packaging through which skills, tools and insights are delivered. But without a training & development component, activities alone are an inefficient use of your time.
We learn best when having fun – when being engaged in something memorable.
But a cool or exciting activity or theme does not build a team or create better leaders. Simply doing an activity together, no matter how thrilling or memorable, drives random outcomes – some of which can be positive and many of which are often negative
Doing activities together might create a bond – which is good.
They also might reinforce cliques or trigger conflicts. That’s not so good.
They might exacerbate an interpersonal issue between co-workers or teammates. That’s problematic at best.
Some activities, without expert and skilled facilitation, might alienate people of various personality types, or worse, might trigger inappropriate competitive conflict between people who really need to improve their ability collaborate with each other.
Low priced entertainment activities advertise themselves as “team building activities” but they are not. There are merely group entertainment. At best they create bonds and are enjoyed by the team. At worst they are destructive to team functioning or morale. And though they appear inexpensive based on their pricing, their opportunity cost is virtually always massive. (Read more about opportunity cost here.)
How many teams have gone to an escape room or some other low budget activity claiming to be “teambuilding” and come back dysfunctional because someone screwed up and they didn’t escape.
How many teams have gone go-karting or to some mindless activity and come back less cohesive, where cliques were reinforced?
How many times have teams gone paintballing or to some highly competitive or confrontational activity and come back with active aggression or conflict worse than ever?
How many times have people gone to extreme sport activities or something intensively physically demanding only to come back with injury or emotional trauma?
How many teams have done a fun activity and returned to work happy with the event, but no better at communicating, solving problems or achieving their goals?
Even a purely charitable or philanthropic activity, which makes a positive impact and is fun, can be a missed opportunity for growth, team development and transformational learning which could have been included if planned for and budgeted.
A customized program, with a highly skilled, expert professional trainer/facilitator leading your team through activities that are customized and designed to drive specific skills, tools, insights and emotions – that’s the way to ensure you get the right results.
Every team has different needs. Who is on the team? Doctors are different than Sales People. Lawyers are different than Engineers. A cross-functional team working across multiple locations has substantially different needs than a team working at one location on one specific project.
The people, the job, the situation, the past, the resources and the challenges for every team are different. So are the goals.
Shouldn’t your team building activity be custom-designed to help your specific team achieve your specific goals in your specific circumstances while having an amazing time together?
(4) Failure To Plan For Outcomes – Goals As An Afterthought, Rather Than Planning And Designing Around Meaningful Results
We’ve hear the conventional wisdom, “If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail.”
Yet when planning a teambuilding or leadership offsite or activity, that’s just what many people do.
They pick a time, date, location, activity and line everything up, before really getting clear on what they truly need to make their team, and each team member, better.
Sometimes the initial goals are vague or general. Sometimes determining the results you need is an afterthought. It should be the focus if you want to get value for all of the time and effort you are investing.
Most costs are fixed and sunk, meaning that your travel, meals, accommodations and your people’s time are spent no matter what you do. And if you have an activity or even a speaker, there is a cost just for getting something on site. But without adding the final ingredient of powerful learning and growth, none of the investment yields any change or any real value.
Having your entire team together in one place at one time is an invaluable opportunity to not just build interconnection, trust and teamwork, but to truly enhance everyone’s skills in the areas of leadership, communication, emotional intelligence, problem solving and thriving in the face of change.
Often people will search the web for an activity and have a vague idea of what might be fun and engaging for their team. Often they will budget too little even for just that fun activity. Then the vendors they call will not be clear on what the client needs or wants and what the deliver will usually underwhelm. If someone had taken the time at the beginning to help the client determine what they really needed, the outcomes would be much more powerful.
Poor planning leads to poor results. Taking the time to really get clear on what your team needs and what those new skills, tools, insights, emotions or behaviors are worth is the key to maximizing results.
Click here to complete our free Event Planning Questionnaire and get clear on goals.
Getting clear on what your team really needs is critical to getting the most out of your investment of time, effort and money.
(5) Filling A Time Slot, Rather Than Allocating The Right Amount Of Time For Results
Today, everyone is pressed for time. We want everything faster. We want everything now. Attention span is shortening and the demands on our time ever-increasing.
Your time is one of your most valuable assets. Each day we have 86,400 seconds to either do something useful and productive, or not. That time, once passed, is gone forever. Time together, in person, with your team is even more valuable because of the opportunity to connect, learn and grow, both individually, and, as a team.
Yet the truth remains. Some things, important things, require that we allocate enough time and attention to get the actual results we need.
Some people want things fast. Some want things cheap. Some want things good.
The fact is, at best you can only have two of the three.
- Fast & Cheap won’t be Good
- Fast & Good won’t be Cheap
There are two exceptionally important lessons from the image above.
1) Notice the difference between what can be drawn in 10 minutes vs. one minute vs. 10 seconds.
- If you don’t allocate a sufficient minimum amount of time for a particular result, you don’t get a quality result.
- If you allocate the right amount of time and the right expertise, you get extraordinary results.
2) The high quality images could not be created, at all, by someone lacking the requisite skills and expertise in drawing – no matter how much time they have.
- Quality requires time AND expertise.
- The LESS TIME you have the MORE EXPERTISE is needed.
In an hour with Albert Einstein you could learn more about physics than in a lifetime with a high school physics student.
Yet when planning team development and leadership offsite events, most people allocate too little time and too little budget.
If you have limited time, it is critical that you actually budget appropriately for a greater level of expertise so that you can maximize the value of the time you do have.
When planning your event, get clear on what you want to achieve rather than just filling time slots. You should design an event with a focus on results. And put the most important results in first. That way, if time is limited, you can get the most powerful outcomes possible within those time constraints.
And if the time you have allocated is too short even for an expert to drive the results you need, consider making more time. Always budget enough time and money to drive results!
(6) Hiring Ordinary Providers, Rather Than The Most Expert & Experienced Providers
So many times people go with the cheaper option because they think they are saving money, but it’s usually the opposite, right?
A cheap contractor ends up finishing late, costing more and doing a poor job. Or heaven forbid creating a disaster that requires the job be redone.
We’ve heard the horror stories of people seeking a cheap surgery out of country, with horrifying outcomes.
A cheap accountant will often miss out on saving you tons of money in taxes. Much more than you saved by paying less for their lack of experience and expertise.
The old adage “You get what you pay for,” is generally true.
Quality has value.
And it’s not just the cheap providers. An ordinary provider drives an ordinary results. Only extraordinary providers deliver extraordinary results.
Cost Effective and Low Cost are NOT the same thing.
Cost effective means that you got massive value for whatever price you paid. Low cost without results is not cost effective. Higher price with extraordinary results and extraordinary value is highly cost effective.
In the case of team development, a cost effective program drives skills, tools and insights that enable your team to drive more revenue or create ongoing efficiencies and cost savings that dwarf the amount you invested in the program.
The ability to go forward and drive results that were NOT previously possible and realizing all of that new value, is what makes an event pay for itself many times over.
There’s a story of a lawyer questioning an “expert witness” who has finger puppets on his right hand. One is the musician “Prince”. Another is a puppet of Prince Charming. The lawyer looks at the judge and says “there must be some confusion… I asked for a finger prints expert.” The judge looks back and says, “this guy is all your budget would pay for. You didn’t budget for a true expert.”
Expertise isn’t cheap. Experience isn’t cheap. But both are truly valuable.
Another issue relating to expertise is the ability to handle larger events.
Scaling is not as simple as adding one leader for every 10 or 20 or 30 people.
You need a leader who can engage the entire team—you need a company that can ensure seamless delivery and all the moving pieces, regardless of the number of participants.
- Many people can engage in a 1 on 1 interaction.
- Some have the ability to engage a handful of people.
- Fewer still can engage and inspire up to 25 participants.
- Some can engage 25-100 people.
- Fewer yet can keep the attention of teams over 100.
- And almost none can captivate teams of hundreds or thousands of participants.
Having the right event leader is the first key to a powerful event. Having the right team of staff supporting that leader and making sure all aspects of the event are handled right is the other.
Different outcomes require different degrees of skill, knowledge and expertise. To get the most powerful results, you need the right people, the right equipment, the right systems, the right expertise and the right strategy.
Most of the costs of your event are fixed. Your people’s time on site. Your planning time. Cost of the venue. Cost of food & beverage. Cost of flights & ground transport. Costs of getting some kind of activity, materials, staff and leader on site.
Making sure that the leader and team you hire have the expertise and experience necessary is the key to maximizing the value and results from your event.
(7) Being Cheap, Rather than Budgeting Appropriately for Results and Value
If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional, wait until you’ve hired an amateur.
Have you ever heard the story of the person who went a therapist for help only to find that the therapist was terrible. “You’re right..” he said, “I’m not a good listener… that’s why my rates are so low.”
Or joke about the person offering two services on their sign. In giant letters it reads, “Legal Advice for 5¢.” Beneath in smaller letters it says “Accurate Expert Legal Advice for $3500/hour.”
We’ve all hear stories of people being penny wise and dollar foolish – trying to save a little money but in the end costing themselves much more money, time, stress and headache.
A wise person once said, “The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.”
We’ve all had similar experiences. When you’re younger or lacking in resources and experience, we often hire a cheap plumber, or doctor, or accountant, only to find that they make a mess or end up costing more in the long run.
Cheap providers often have hidden costs. But even if they don’t, fixing their mistakes is always costly.
When NASA builds the space shuttle they don’t go with the lowest bidder.
The do sole source procurement because they don’t want cheap and won’t settle for cheap. They need specific and unique expertise and know that it’s worth paying for.
Professional Teambuilding was hired by the General of the Pacific Command when they had the ability to select any provider on earth, sole source procurement – not lowest bidder, and needed the finest expertise in leadership, problem solving, communication and teamwork to train their leaders about to deploy. They didn’t go lowest bidder. They chose a company and specific trainers with the skill, experience and expertise that was critical to driving specific results.
HOW MANY HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF $$$ HAS YOUR COMPANY LOST BY NOT BEING PROPERLY EDUCATED BY YOUR PAST SUPPLIERS.
When you hire an expert, you’re not paying for the short time you have together at your event.
You are paying for the decades of unique and sometimes proprietary knowledge and experience that leader has at their fingertips, that can make a massive and valuable impact on your team, paying for itself many times over.
BONUS – Fatal Mistake #8
Waiting Too Long To Invest In High Quality Training & Development
“Nothing is more expensive than a missed opportunity.”
Small leak in a sink if fixed costs little… if you ignore it for a a week or two—water damage and if you ignore it then mold damage…
Small fire can be put out with one breath – think of a candle or a match.
Minor fire with a cup of water or by covering with a cloth.
Bigger fires need an extinguisher, to stop the flames.
Eventually a fire hydrant and professional fire fighters are all that stand in its way.
And if too much time passes, and it grows too large and too powerful, there is nothing anyone can do but watch it burn.
There is no doubt that cost of problems can be minimized if solved quickly. And delay often leads to geometric or exponential increase in cost.
This video shows us the power in doing things NOW.
Take the example of a minor misunderstanding between coworkers.
If resolved quickly it has minimal negative impact. But if left unsolved, it can fester into a major situation involving loss of productivity, ongoing conflict and eventually impacts on revenue, clients, the rest of the team – ultimately involving HR, legal, and all of the costs of turnover as well.
Conversely, opportunities are worth the most if our team has the skills and flexibility to collectively act quickly and effectively to capitalize upon them. As time passes, the value of an opportunity shrinks, often rapidly.
And we can’t use skills we don’t have. Opportunity cost of NOT obtaining new skills, tools and insights means that we don’t get the benefits of having those skills.
The moment you gain and start using new skills you being creating value through those new results.
If you have problems, fix them quickly.
If you have opportunities, make sure your team has the skills to capitalize on them now.
If you want better communication, get training on communication now.
If you need more flexibility, get training on that skill now.
If your team needs more resilience, seek the most powerful resilience training now.
If you are going through changes, train immediately on the skills to help you thrive through change.
We see stories everyday of century old iconic organizations that failed to move quickly, failed to be proactive, failed to avail themselves of opportunities, failed to learn to be flexible, failed to invest in training their teams, and, as a result, were displaced in the market, lost preeminence in the market or even disappeared completely.
You wont make that mistake, or any of the fatal mistakes included here.
You will take action right away to ensure your teambuilding activities, leadership off-sites, all hands meetings, team meetings, strategic retreats and other team events are not just fun, exciting and unforgettable.
RECAP:
You will make sure you:
- hire professionals
- custom design
- focus on results
- plan for specific outcomes
- allocate appropriate time
- select expert & experienced trainers & powerful content
- allocate enough budget for quality
- and don’t forget, do it as soon as possible.
The sooner you plant, the sooner you reap the rewards.
The time to take action is now.