Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them and you have their shoes.
~Jack Handey
Friday Funnies: Jack Handey
Friday, January 29, 2016
Friday Funnies: Jack Handey
Friday Funnies: Jack Handey
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
Richmond Lawyers Kalbaugh Pfund & Messersmith Built Bicycles for Kids During the Holidays
Richmond does the Holidays up right- from the Parade of Lights on the James River to the Christmas Parade, Virginia’s capitol city knows how to celebrate.
That includes a group of lawyers from Kalbaugh Pfund & Messersmith who celebrated the Season of Giving with some charity team building. Their #1 priority was giving back to the community so they approached us for one of our charity team building workshops. We knew right away the perfect workshop for them was going to be our Bike-A-Thon™ bicycle team building workshop!
A holiday charity workshop is a great break from stress, not to mention a way to give back.
Giving gifts to kids in the community happens all over the world this time of year, but when lawyers on a mission get together for a charity team building workshop, the giving really gets turned up a notch!
This group put everything they had into building bicycles, despite pressing matters back at the office. We like to think of our workshops as providing multi-faceted benefits. Getting away from it all is one of them.
A team building workshop is a chance for employees to leave the stress of the job behind for a few hours. In the meantime, they’re building positive bonds with each other and improving team working skills.
These Richmond lawyers loved making commercials.
One of our most effective and popular activities in these charity team building workshops is called “Commercials”. Teams write TV commercials for fictional products or services, then perform them in front a judging panel of their peers.
Lawyers being lawyers, this group went full-on competitive! The creativity and showmanship was first-rate, and it seemed they loved the judging aspect as much as they enjoyed creating the commercials!
Giving turns local with Bike-A-Thon™
We love it when teams choose to “go local” with their donations. In fact, we encourage it every time! With Bike-A-Thon™ it’s an especially good idea because a special event which happens at the end of every workshop.
When all the bicycles have been built, we have the kids from the receiving organization come to accept the donations. It’s almost always the best part of the whole workshop.
The lawyers from Kalbaugh Pfund & Messersmith had chosen to donate to the local Richmond Boys & Girls Club, which is probably our most often-selected charity for the bikes.
That didn’t work out, however, so at the last moment we lined up a local church school in Richmond. Those kids sure were pleased we went with them! Smiles all around, team bonds were built, and everyone had a good time.
Richmond Lawyers Kalbaugh Pfund & Messersmith Built Bicycles for Kids During the Holidays
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Friday, January 22, 2016
Friday Funnies: Earl Wilson
If you think nobody cares if you’re alive, try missing a couple of payments.
~Earl Wilson
Friday Funnies: Earl Wilson
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Friday, January 15, 2016
Friday Funnies: Bill McGlashen
Patience is something you admire in the driver behind you, but not in one ahead.
~Bill McGlashen
Friday Funnies: Bill McGlashen
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Relypsa Leaders Set the Tone for Hilarious but Productive Redwood City Workshop
It speaks volumes when company leaders are part of team building workshops.
It’s not every leader who can interact in a workshop setting where hierarchy is checked at the door! The message being sent: this stuff is important so let’s do this!
A recent workshop for a group from Relypsa included several layers of the company, right up to a cluster of VP’s who arrived for the challenges. Meeting in Redwood City at the Sofitel Hotel San Francisco this Fall, they had booked a Bike-A-Thon workshop and arrived ready to go…
Demonstrating the power of positive energy.
Well they were almost ready to go! We had a late start so there was very little time for icebreakers. And with a group like this, whose members may not know each other well because they come from varying ranks in the company, icebreakers are pretty useful!
No worries, though: the little cluster of VP’s made everyone feel right at home with their wonderfully powerful positive energy.
That kind of energy is highly contagious, and it soon spread to the other groups in the room (even one which didn’t seem to be feeling the whole workshop thing at first…).
From reluctant doubters to creative singing geniuses- team building works!
Those VP’s again…they turned out to really lead the way in creativity, too. In our “Commercials” activity, the group is divided into teams. Each team must write an original TV commercial for a product, then perform their commercial for the others.
If you were to measure energy levels, the VP group certainly went off the charts. Their commercial involved dancing and singing and even jumping around the room.
Of course it looks and sounds like fun and games, but all this is actually the result of some very good communication, collaboration and other important skills.
Hands-on activities that work for the whole Relypsa group.
Once the “reluctant” group felt the energy, they got into their commercial as well and actually produced a nice piece. Their collaborative creativity had the rest of their colleagues laughing and applauding them.
You could feel the teamwork growing- the high-energy activities and the very high-energy group was able to overcome a tiny bit of negativity in the beginning, with a little help from their leaders.
There were new Relypsa employees present, who didn’t know anyone…the team building even worked for them as they were made to feel that they were part of the group, and their input mattered during the creative problem-solving activities.
In the end, the Relypsa group left with newly formed bonds, some grounded practice with communication skills, and a whole new regard for their Vice Presidents…just some of the important ingredients called for in teamwork.
Relypsa Leaders Set the Tone for Hilarious but Productive Redwood City Workshop
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
Schneider Electric in Nashville Gets Help in Dealing with Change
Like many of our clients, Schneider Electric came to us with a very specific goal in mind: they needed help dealing with the repercussions of some major corporate change.
Not only that, but they needed it right away!
With only a week to get ready for the customized workshop events, we all worked very hard to pull everything together. Judging from the impressive results of the workshop, it all came together beautifully in the end!
First, we ironed out the kinks with some ice breakers.
Before we begin any team building games and challenges, we always do ice breakers. With a group that’s dealing with some internal issues stemming from changes in the workplace, it’s even more important to set the tone with some effective ice-breaking activities.
This group from Schneider Electric in Nashville, Tennessee had recently suffered through some organizational restructuring, and they had a new VP. Things like that can set a group on end, disrupting productivity in a big way.
Corporate team building games that get everyone on the same page serve to realign the group and build trust back to up healthy levels. Only then do we begin the team building challenges that follow.
We had to deal with a little change ourselves: the assigned room for this workshop was an IT training room, set up in a traditional classroom style. Since our workshops are more interactive, we moved to the cafeteria, which suited our needs perfectly. Good thing the workshop facilitator arrived a day early to check out the space!
Then we addressed corporate change with Minefield.
The Minefield activity is a great one for building trust and strengthening communication. Team members must guide one another through a “minefield” of small physical obstacles, using only words. There’s a direct link between good communication skills and success in this team building game.
The takeaway from this activity was the importance of your peers when navigating unknown territory…the perfect metaphor for corporate change!
Then the fun began: building bikes for charity!
Now that teams had worked to a certain level of trust and communication, they could put it all together and compete to earn bicycle parts and tools for assembling their donations.
Gears for Years was the chosen charity for the Schneider Electric group, and a representative arrived to see that the bikes went to the local charity: a shelter for children in downtown Nashville. They provided a gratitude plaque for the team, and presented it to the Schneider Electric group as their way of saying thanks for giving back.
Schneider Electric in Nashville Gets Help in Dealing with Change
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
Team Building Tuesdays: Hard Work
A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.
~Colin Powell
Team Building Tuesdays: Hard Work
Bicycle Team Building: Pumped For Success
Depending on your weight, age and a few other vital statistics, you could burn 40 calories per mile riding a bike. Imagine how many calories you could burn building one! Bicycle team building is a great physical, mental and social workout for any group of rising corporate stars.
Today, corporate social responsibility is an important part of every successful business model. Bike building for low-income kids is one of the best ways for a company to create goodwill in the community, pull employees together, and have fun at the same time.
The whole process of planning the bike assembly, collecting all the parts and necessary tools, and assigning tasks takes the kind of teamwork most staffers don’t experience in the office. That’s the point. Everyone has to step out of their corporate comfort zones and learn to relate to each other in an entirely different setting.
No Spare Parts
Bicycle team building levels the playing field. How? Although it may not always be immediately apparent, everyone has an important role to play and each person can feel valued.
Through the skillful leadership of a wise facilitator, the normal pecking order that usually persists at work may disappear as team members are given the freedom to let their creative and organizational talents shine.
A seemingly quiet manager-in-training may rise to the top of the heap as a tough negotiator when the time comes to parse out bike assembly assignments. Even when a teammate’s worst character traits surface, the others have an opportunity to learn how to unruffle his feathers and get him back on track in a less politically risky setting than the workplace.
More Than A Vehicle
The bicycle can become more than a vehicle for a needy child. It can take the team from one level of cohesion to another through clearer communication and a spirit of camaraderie.
Bicycle Team Building: Pumped For Success
Team Building Benefits Leaders Too
Team building isn’t just about the members of the team, it’s critical for the leadership as well.
What’s true in science, as in the case of J. Robert Oppenheimer and his Manhattan Project boys, and in sports, such as Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers, can hold true in organizations as well.
Successful leaders usually have great teams behind them. In most situations, teams are able to accomplish what individuals find difficult or impossible to do alone.
Trust is Essential
The first step in the team building process is identifying the strengths and weaknesses of each team member, defining the tasks to be completed and assigning each task to the member best suited to do it.
A clear delegation method will create trust between a leader and his or her members, with both parties coming to a better understanding of the specific task that has been delegated and how it should be done.
Timelines are also in order and need to be discussed with team members, allowing them to air out their view to find out whether or not compliance to these timelines are possible.
Team Work without Friction
A good team is made up of members who are committed to one another in particular and to the team in general bound by a common vision. The need of the team to accomplish the goal provides them with a strong driving force. The vision gives them the compass for reaching that goal, keeping all team members moving not only at the same common speed but in one singular direction.
Because they are united in arriving at the same destination, there is little or no friction during the journey. This is the ideal process by which an ideal team moves. The commitment of the team members extends to their priority to work as a team, giving up their individual needs if necessary to reach the goal.
Happiness is Not Self-Serving
Choosing individuals, each with a different set of skills, talents and interests, as team members involves discretion and wisdom because it’s really all about forging those individuals as tightly as possible to fit them together and establish bonds with each other. Getting them for a team building workshop helps them strengthen these bonds, with clear-cut team building objectives that emphasize motivational participation.
A team that works well can be likened to an individual who is multitasking all at once, and then it becomes an assembly of several individuals doing his or her own thing, making the whole far greater than the totality of all its parts.
Simply put, good team building programs designed by experts will inspire a team member to set aside his or her own motives to achieve more than the members can accomplish if each of them worked alone.
Team building is an excellent way to recognize that happiness in the workplace is possible when a member is supportive of the others, and each member’s task complements the rest of the team’s work. Contact us today and let us show you how we can help you succeed!
Team Building Benefits Leaders Too
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