So, you planned a teambuilding or training for your employees perfectly down to the last detail, but you’re not finished yet. The entire purpose of the event was to successfully capture issues that need to be solved, to discover new abilities of your employees, to build a stronger connection and to learn. And now you have to plan how you’re going to put all the information you all gain to use. That’s why you need to put in plan a follow-up process.
Your employees know that you share in their desire to evolve. And evolution comes through change. We all know how hard it is to change habits. Over time, people develop dysfunctional ways to relate to each other. Fine tuning or making adjustments based on the experience that you lived in a teambuilding or training is a sign of maturity from the leadership team. By following up the activity that took place in the teambuilding or training you are creating an opportunity for the participants to troubleshot and consolidate lessons.
What you have to remember is that you need to follow up a teambuilding or training to make sure the activity has a lasting effect because these are not just a one-time event. It’s important to have a follow-up after the sessions. Otherwise, it’s easy to get caught up on the work at hand and forget what you have learned.
Here are some specific reasons that we, at Hoinar Events, choose to follow up every teambuilding and training:
1. To see what worked and what didn’t
Our preference is to follow up about 15-30 days after a teambuilding or training, in a meeting where we all share how things are going. We establish rapport by listening reflectively to whatever is said when we start our meeting. As much as possible we validate emotions and explore whether it is possible to reframe any frustration as care, disappointment as commitment and anxiety as courage.
To find out more about the teambuilding/training results, we ask some specific question like:
- What aspects of the teambuilding/training have been working well?
- What have you done differently?
- What aspects of the teambuilding caused frustration/disappointment/anxiety?
When we follow up in a shared meeting we get participants to share a specific situation that has been challenging. Based on what they share, we may do some additional skill building and then we have them to do what we call “Take Two”. They get to replay the situation and with some supportive coaching and encouragement, see what it could have worked out differently.
2. To see if the objectives were accomplished
Successful teams don’t just happen. They need time and effort. And some SMART objectives to achieve through teambuildings or trainings. The overall objectives are to achieve the high performance, to develop the group through the various stages of development until it achieves it. However, like any other process, there are different steps or stages, and there are quite different objectives and goals at each stage. Focusing on the right objectives and goals both in teambuilding and follow-up meeting will help you achieve high performance.
First stage: Forming:
- To bind the group, so that they get to know each other and begin having a sense of team
- To align them to the shared purpose, goals and targets
- To establish a positive team culture, the beliefs, the values and norms of behavior
- To establish the role of the leader
Second stage – Storming
- To keep them align to purpose and goals
- To develop good working relationships between all members, giving them experience of working with different team members
- To nurture shared problem solving and generating new ideas
- To introduce processes so that they work effectively together
- To establish clear short-term goals and methods for celebrating achievements and milestones
Third stage – Norming:
- To increase the business knowledge, so that the team and individual members can take on more responsively
- To encourage problem-solving, innovation and leadership for specific projects or tasks
- To modify or change the processes so that they take on more responsibility
- To get the team to set its own goals
In the follow-up meeting, we will analyze which of the objectives were accomplished and what are the reasons why some objectives haven’t been accomplished, if it’s the case. In that way, we ensure that the teambuilding or training we organized with you wasn’t a waste of time, money and effort.
3. To discover new needs for further activities
In a follow-up session, not only individual or team needs are checked, but latent needs, problems or frustrations that need to be solved are revealed.
What you need to understand is that the evolution of a team is based on a longer process, whose stages require fine tunning.
In the end, the entire focus of the follow-up meeting is learning and continuous improvement.