When Team Building Misses the Mark

Team building has been getting a bad rap on social media.

In one Reddit post, a maxed-out employee railed against his company for ‘forcing’ him to skip work to attend a mandatory team-building day. “These people are not my family. I don’t need to know them on a personal level. They don’t have to be my friends. I’m entirely fine just going to work, doing what I gotta do and leaving. Especially when I’m already working 60- to 70-hour weeks.”

On TikTok, there’s no shortage of videos and comedy skits poking fun at the typical team-building exercises, like the backward fall.

It Starts at the Top

Why do so many team-building outings miss the mark? It’s tricky to bring together multiple generations of people with varying energy levels and different interests and tastes to build a more cohesive team.

No amount of bonding will make up for poor leadership, said Szilvia Olah, an organizational psychologist, founder of The Strengths Company, and author of “The Corporate Kindergarten” and “The Blind Leading the Disengaged.”

“When there is low performance, conflict, rivalry, poor communication, or straightforward animosity within a team, it’s because problems are being ignored. I hate to break it, but no team building or pizza party will solve that. The fallacy is that the leader must solve the problem with the employees. But it is a leadership problem.”

Instead, she said, leaders need the humility to look into the mirror and say, “I am letting my team down by allowing this toxic culture to fester.”

Then there’s the issue of the generations, said Edward Perotti, founder of Edward Perotti – Events & Experiences. “There’s a noticeable difference in team-building preferences between older and younger leaders. Older leaders often favor traditional activities like beach Olympics, bike building and school backpacks. Younger leaders are more inclined toward experiences that resonate with the team, the culture and the local community.”

Perotti won’t even suggest to his clients many activities that used to be considered standard. “I have 100% stopped any of the expected – or, dare I say, cliché – team-building activities. They do have a place; however, salsa and margarita lessons are not team-building.”

Giving Back Can Be Complicated

Tom Farndon, director of client experience at Impact 4 Good, which designs philanthropic team building, says that one of the biggest missteps planners make is not considering the values of attendees or the philanthropic pillars already established by the company. There’s no point in “arbitrarily choosing a cause to support based on more superficial qualities, such as the optics of how it looks to others. Instead, start by polling your team and finding out what’s important to them, or contacting the corporate social responsibility department to align with causes the company stands behind.”

It’s also essential to consider how a team-building activity or corporate social responsibility (CSR) program impacts those involved. For bike building, the children receiving the bikes often join the event and interact with participants. Some would argue that this practice – though well-meaning – is the ultimate miss. 

“The truth is: Having kids come to an event only benefits the group, not the kids,” said Sharon Fisher, founder of Play With a Purpose. Fisher describes having children participate in a corporate teambuilding activity as an awkward and scary experience for the kids. “It’s extremely uncomfortable and embarrassing to ‘be poor’ and get free stuff from people they don’t know. They love getting the bike, but being put on parade to get it is not a great feeling.”