Team Building: Is that Really What You Need?
Last week, I facilitated a peer coaching call with a group of Directors and Vice Presidents. The conversation centered around bolstering facilitation skills as a leadership tool. During our discussion, one leader vulnerably shared, “I find it challenging to transition from the playful facilitator of icebreakers on team calls to the manager who must address performance shortfalls.” He felt that acting as a facilitator undermined his credibility as a serious leader. Yet, he acknowledged that without his involvement in this role, team energy would decline.
Why Does Virtual Facilitation Matter?
Between 2019 and 2023, onsite jobs capable of remote work have decreased from 60% to 20% (1). Employees highly value flexibility, and companies that don't adapt face increased turnover, with 29% of hybrid and 61% of fully remote workers likely to leave if this option is denied. The shift to remote work, now the norm, has led to a 153% increase in weekly meetings since 2020 (2). While meeting bloat is exhausting, it has also heightened the cultural stakes of virtual interactions. Each meeting serves as a data point for how it feels to work at your company. The overall dataset is less diverse than it was pre-COVID, when in-person engagement provided a broader range of experiences to reference in determining purpose alignment, culture fit, or job satisfaction.
So, is our new reality in the remote world that our primary tool for driving culture is virtual meetings? What do we do when that’s not enough?
Our Love/Hate Relationship with Team Building
When leaders feel stuck, I get a call. “Our team’s spirit is dwindling. We’re stuck. We need team building.” It seems like a straightforward solution: gather everyone together in a room for two days to foster camaraderie. However, especially in the remote environment, these activities are more likely to elicit skepticism and disengagement than genuine connection. That’s because they often aren’t strategic. They happen ad hoc, including a one-off training experience and dinner. Yet, we do it over and over again. Typically, the thing that brings the group together the most is complaining about the “forced fun.” It’s something we love to hate. Why?
Here’s the pattern: we are desperate for connection, so we come together to do “team building.” It feels uncomfortable and doesn’t accomplish its intentions. Then the team privately bonds over how awkward it was. Sound familiar?
Beneath these potent feelings—embarrassment, disdain, and blame—is often fear. It's easier to ridicule what unnerves us than to face it head-on. The reality is our problem is much bigger than a need for team building. What we are uncovering is that in a remote world without a culture strategy, foundational elements like trust, safety, and reliability are eroding. If we don't delve deeper to solve this, superficial team-building efforts can exacerbate engagement issues, feeling shallow and aimless.
3 Ways To Improve Team Culture
To enhance team dynamics, consider the following:
Create a Culture Strategy: If you are leading a remote or hybrid team and you haven’t done this, you are already behind. You need to articulate both the current cultural norms as well as your cultural ambitions. The contextual clues are limited in your world, so you need to rethink how to be explicit with your team in a way that connects them to purpose, business norms, and cultural differentiators.
Treat Your Team Like a Product: Next, approach your team dynamics with the same precision and focus as you would your product or service. Analyze it, quantify it, and experiment with it. If hybrid or remote work is a priority, recognize the time missed from in-person interactions and reallocate it to fortify team relationships.
Connect Onsite Activities & Retreats to Strategy: Now that you have a clear point of view on how your team accomplishes its goals and what it should feel like to work at your company, you must give your leaders and teams the tools to actualize the vision. This includes training, team building connected to norms, and feedback. It signals to the group that the way work gets done is just as important as the outcome. I promise you, the structured cooking class or kayaking will actually be welcomed if the rest of your offsite has purpose.
It’s time to realize that norms have shifted. Our old ways of building connection and culture don’t work anymore. If you leave it to happenstance, you aren’t going to be happy with the result. Embrace these practices to ensure your team thrives in the new world of work.
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