The Sandstone Team Building Blog

I stumbled across an academic paper the other day that really gladdened my heart.  We have long believed that the image that the phrase “team building” conjures up in most people’s minds – a group of people doing something physical outdoors, be it in a field, half way down a cliff or suspended in mid air in a variety of ways – is about as far away from actually building a team as you can get.  Feel free to view this article for more detail on our thoughts on this matter.  But this blog entry isn’t about our thoughts.  It’s about the thoughts of Dr Gene Benter, an International House Professor currently plying his trade in Saudi Arabia, the author of said paper.  It’s several pages deep and if you really want you can read the full article here or here.  But I think a significant chunk of it is wrapped up in his final conclusion.  Time to share some wonderful phraseology that sums up our own approach…

“Team building activities such as mountain climbing, cooking contest, and fire walks are ineffective exercises to develop team work because what is at stake in these activities is survival and not camaraderie.”

I love it.  In my view, these kind of team sessions can do more harm than good.  It’s one thing for an organisation to choose to use outward bound type sessions to test and develop people who have put themselves forward as potential leaders, managers etc.  It is quite another to subject every team member to something that, for some of them, is their very idea of hell.  He goes on to say that…

“Giving rigorous and difficult exercises for team building only discourage participants to commit themselves to the firm.  It is good to remember that people join the workforce to earn a living and not to subject themselves to pain and hardships.”

Dr Benter, you have at least one fan here – and a whole portfolio of activities that comply with your clearly well researched view.

Alan

We’re all very excited here!  Working with our web expert partners, Red Evolution, we’ve developed the world’s first fully web delivered professional team building activity. Space Rescue is the first in what will become a portfolio of web delivered activities available at our dedicated site www.teambuildingrescue.com.

It’s a low cost, environmentally friendly option as well, so it really doesn’t cost the Earth.  And it can be run from anywhere on the Earth.

I could tell you all about it here.  But what’s the point.  Visit the new site,  That’ll tell you everything you need to know.

Nikki

I have the rare honour, for me, of writing about our first team building event of the month for 2010!  I know Paul enjoys writing these entries, but a three-team Iceberg event I ran solo in Birmingham has won hands down and since I was the only member of our team present, it falls to me to write the entry.  It was held at venue we hadn’t worked at before called The Studio.  What a fabulous venue in the city centre with very helpful staff.

Onto the actual Iceberg event!  Although this event was held in Birmingham, none of the participants were from the West Midlands.  They came from three different locations, spread North and South, so all had to get up early and catch trains.  Despite their early start, they all put in a lot of effort and they appreciated the engagement Iceberg gave them.  That carried over into the  debriefing session and, better still, into their own business planning sessions in the afternoon.

A great event, excellent participants, terrific venue and staff.  An all-round worthy winner!

Alan

Yes, you read the title right.  Online team building.  People often search for it.  As far as we are aware, no-one has ever actually found it.  Until now.

We are very confident that we have a world first on our hands.  A professional team building option that is delivered completely over the web.  If anyone was going to create such a fabulous activity, we would always have been a good bet.  Our existing portfolio is cram-packed with options ranging from the belly laughter of every Memory Lane event to the intensity and maximum learning that is the hallmark of every Liberation session that all have one thing in common.  We use technology to supplement our experienced and brilliant facilitation teams to deliver something unique and memorable effectively and efficiently.

Now we have taken it that one step further and have created something that does away with the need for a facilitation team.  They’ve been replaced by a computer.  Yours.

Space Rescue is the activity’s name and it unique in so many ways.  Too many ways for this blog entry to cover.  Check out the first ever professionally created and web delivered online team building activity here.

Set in orbit around the Earth, it doesn’t cost the Earth to run.  Spare a thought for our facilitation teams though.  They’re looking worried…

Alan

Well this is a very difficult blog to write.  I often have difficulty choosing a team building event of the month, so having to go back through those and choose a team building event of the year is very very hard for me.

You may or may not know that we at Sandstone have 14 unique team building activities to offer our clients.  The observant amongst you will have realised that not all could feature in one year, even if we wanted, as there are 12 months in a year.  In fact, looking through our past blogs, 8 of our team building activities were selected at different points in the year: Cube, Dropzone, First Contact, Iceberg, Liberation, Memory Lane, Romanbar and Wild West, with some of them making two appearances.

I’ve been talking with my regular blogger buddies here at Sandstone (Alan, Barbara, Nikki and Steve) and we’ve all been discussing our personal favourites, and the top three in reverse order are …

3rd: The First Contact event in Central London in September
2nd: The double Memory Lane event in Bolton in August
1st: The Wild West event in Manchester in April

There is no prize to this client for winning this prestigious title – other then good old bragging rights of course!

Congratulations and thank you to all of our clients for giving us some amazing events during 2009!

Paul

As the title of this blog suggests all of us here at Sandstone would like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and Season’s Greetings.  We hope you enjoy whatever you you chose to do over this festive break.

For anyone who is interested, our office will be closed on Christmas Eve and will re-open on Monday, 4th January.  We will be checking for important emails and voice mails from time to time should the need arise!

Until 2010 …

Barbara and everyone in our team!

A slightly different take on this week’s team building blog entry.  What some of you may not know is that sometimes we work with clients and they dedicate the whole time to the team building activity of their choice.  Other times clients choose to include a team building activity into their wider conference.  The sizes of these conferences can vary from 10 people to more then 250 people – size really doesn’t matter.

Our team building activites are great as stand alone events or we can incorporate them into your conference.  Some clients like options which are tailorable to fit in with conference themes and messages, in these cases a client will often choose Cube or Vision Idol.  Other clients decide they want something completely different and chose an activity which isn’t so tailored to conference themes but delivers good team building outcomes for them and of course is good fun!

Either way we always have happy clients.

As always thanks for reading!

Nikki

I’m delighted to say that this blog entry has nothing to do with team building or any of our activities.  Instead this is a BIG congratulations to our friend and colleague Jo who had a beautiful baby daughter last week.  Grace Clare,  7lbs 14oz.  We’re sure Jo, husband Trev and big sister Frankie are all delighted to have the new addition to their family happy healthy and ready for Christmas!

Congratulations from us all.

Barbara

Choosing our team building event of the month has been a difficult decision this time.  On the first Monday we had three different activities in completley different locations.  We had a First Contact in Northumbria, an Iceberg in Plymouth and a Memory Lane in Middlesex.  All three could have been blog entries in their own right, but I’ve decided that this month the honour will be awarded to the Memory Lane event.

This client was so enthusiastic.  They were all smiley happy people who loved singing their heads off to Robbie Williams’ song “Angels” and who can blame them?  They showed off their impressive dance moves and were a bit naughty by trying to bribe me and my colleagues for extra points.  However, despite their charm we managed to resist!  Their marble runs were fantastic and their attempts at Telephone Booth entertaining.  Not only were they great during Memory Lane but they also really looked after us as well, so thank you!

Paul

We are often approached by organisations who are looking to develop their team members and we are always happy to help with one of our team building activities.  However, it isn’t just our clients that look to develop their team members.  We do too.  Regular internal staff training sessions are held to ensure everybody is at the top of their game!  We also look to external organisations, where appropriate, to do this as well.  For example, I went on a week long leaders course last year which I am continuing to do follow-up work from.  We understand the importance of an outside perspective as much as our clients do.  It is important to develop your team members. This can sometimes be done internally, other times you need a little bit of outside help.  If you are interested in how we can help you why not contact us?

Nikki