The Sandstone Team Building Blog

Well, we’ve finally taken the plunge and decided to join the blogging community having resisted the urge thus far. So why have we done so? Two reasons. Firstly, people we respect have been asking us for a blog for a while. At least that’s what we think they said! Secondly, we finally owned up to enjoying a little voyeurism with other folk’s blogs and it seems churlish not to reciprocate.

This left us with the problem of what to write for this very first entry. Or more accurately, left me with the problem of what to write as the others “felt” (nice word) that as MD I should be the one to kick this whole thing off. OK, never let it be said I shirked in my…

I reckon I should start with us. We’re a family owned and operated company, I’m delighted to say. Some might find the prospect of working with their wife, offspring, offspring-in-law, brother, cousins, nephews and nieces a daunting prospect. From which you’ll gather I don’t have a sister and just the one brother. Believe me, one brother is enough! Back to the daunting prospect theme, I can only say that it works for me - and I hope my various relatives too! It helps that they are not alone. The rest of our team is not related to us - though some are to one another, keeping the family feel going. They help keep us sane. Well saner than we would be otherwise anyhow.

What has any of this to do with team building, surely the most relevant content for our first blog? Well, I don’t see how we can help others build their teams without some experience of doing it ourselves. All teams have work related challenges to overcome and ours is no different. But I think is fair to say that adding the heavy family connection into the equation creates some fairly unique ones. Our definition of a team is one in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Whilst the family connections adds some advantages such as the natural connection to begin with, it also makes it harder for us to appreciate and harness the differences to create something that really flies. The fact that we have succeeded at that is a huge source of pride for us all. We reckon that managing to achieve that for ourselves makes it easier for us to help others with more traditional issues achieve it also.

The family connection also means we care about our business and that means we care about our clients, so everyone is a winner.

Surely that will do for now? I reckon it is someone else’s turn next time…

Alan