Teambonding - Experience the Power of Play

It has been quite a while since my last blog and the world has changed. My last blog talked about the past two years and getting recognized by Inc. for being one of the fast growing companies in 2007 and 2008. I was proud of our work and our team. I still am.

Since that time the economy has challenged everything and everyone and the barrage of bad news never seems to end and seems to feed on itself. Personally, I have been limited to reading the news only twice a day and have had to determine how to position Teambonding as we continue to move into uncharted territory. What I hold onto every day is the knowledge and firm belief that our current and future clients know that keeping employees engaged and happy is a good investment for the company and for the economy.

Teambonding is a partner for so many of these good companies that if I focus on one thing during this time, we will be rewarded. The one thing that will continue to separate us from the others in our industry is quality and just this week we received more great feedback from two of our favorite clients that I wanted to share.

The first is a repeat client who just wrote about Operation: Military Care : “Michael was a good as they get! We’d love to have him back again. And it was a GREAT event for our community. That’s two home runs in a row for Team Bonding. “ Repeat clients are the measurement of success for a team building company and we are fortunate to have so many like this one.

The second is a from a New Jersey meeting planner who shared this feedback after a Charity Bike Build program with our lead facilitator. Rob Fletcher. “I love how Teambonding is so closely knit and their standard of work is uniformly high .” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. Teambonding is a great team that builds great teams.

I have to believe that when the dust settles smart companies will recognize and reward employees that have ridden out the storm and companies that merge and acquire, will need help connecting their employees with the new company. We will be there to help with innovative programs, trained facilitators and our pricing that continues to set us apart from others as a value in the industry. We are what we do, we are Teambonding!

It’s been over 20 years since I started this company – longer than I have been married, longer than I lived with my parents, longer than anything I have ever done. An overnight success, yes, early on and then like all businesses, we had some terrific highlights along the way that we are very proud of. When the Jim Henson company hired us to do a Duck Tour Adventure in Chatham, MA – a definite highlight. When James Earl Jones played a character in one of our corporate murder mysteries for Verizon Yellow Pages, another highlight. When Playboy hired us to do not one but two events at the Playboy Mansion – a personal highlight. Early on when we were hired to do a limousine scavenger hunt for the New England Patriots, that’s right, highlights. Every day we have success stories and the most recent is another highlight – the Inc. 5000, not just once, twice.

The Inc. 5000 is a recognition of our success which is due to hard work by our staff for our clients. It tells us and our clients that we are doing well and that the directions that we have chosen to embrace when we added on the Culinary Team Building division, the Philanthropic programs and most recently the Training programs that we are going in the right direction.

I have learned over all these years that this is not something I can do alone and every day I appreciate those that helped us get here and those repeat and new clients that will bring us to the next level. Thank you.

On my way home from work today I flipped through our local suburban shopper. I like to see what’s new and what’s going on. Today an ad caught my attention and the reason it caught my attention is that the company changed their name. JLS Numismatics (formerly the Coin Shoppe of Stoughton), proclaimed the ad. Wow, I would have thought the Coin Shoppe would be easier to remember, to get a URL, to market. I guess that the owner, who is a a professional Numismatist knows his clientele or the clientele that he wants to attract. We just went through the same thing with our new training division, changing the name from Team Development Institute to Training Path. It took weeks to figure out what name would resonate with our clients, attract new clients and show the direction that we wanted to go in. I guess we all have our reasons for changing a business name or keeping one like Team Bonding the same.

So here I sit with a skinned knee and elbow – this innovation stuff is hard work, not for the faint of heart. The sight of my own blood – enough to discourage us from pursuing great events for your team – of course not. Somebody has to take the hit.

Today we had our own team building outing for our company and we learned lessons in event management and rain policy. Plan A was to meet at 9:00AM at Boston Harbor Cruises for their 90 minute fast ferry to Provincetown. Upon arrival, we were to test out our new Cell Phone Scaventure and then lunch, shopping, beach and back on the boat. Well, the weather had other plans for us. Winds of 50 mph sort of made the boat the antithesis of team building. So yesterday, plans changed.

Plan B started with a fantastic team lunch at the Melting Pot for our team of 11 people. They opened up just for us. What a great lunch and chocolate fondue… let’s just say it was hard to leave. Then we were off to Pump it Up, the kids inflatable party place. We are developing a national team building program for their 174 locations. We seemed like the perfect team to test it out on.

We laughed, we played, we juggled as a team. We had this great relay race through three different inflatable games and did I mentioned we laughed. Training and team building, production and sales, a great team building day for our team. Soon we’ll be announcing how we can do this for your team!

June is always a crazy month, a busy month, a great month. Here are a few of the things that happened and are happening:

It is our 3rd busiest month and we have delivered over 75programs from scavenger hunts in over 20 cities, charity bike builds including another one in Cancun, and TeamCuisine in Puerto Rico.

We have just completed our back office, a nine month project which ties sales to production to accounting and brings our team together so that our clients benefit from us sharing information

We have just launched TrainingPath our corporate training division and hired a seasoned Director of Sales with over 15 years of training sales experience

We have debuted new programs including Fare to Share, Operation Military Care, Just Desserts, and a brand new, hi tech, mobile cell phone scavenger hunt.

On July 4th even I am mixing business with pleasure as I will be sailing on a tall ship and of course discussing business with the Captain about our new Corporate Sailing program.

Coming in July, a new national partnership with a venue with locations all over the country and in September, a partnership with an International Hotel chain for our Culinary Programs.

Busy, yes we are and finally, if you can keep a secret… we made the Inc. 5000 again, for the second year in a row and to keep up that growth, I owe a debt of gratitude to our CEO Scott Flynn and our entire TeamBonding team of Jeff, Jayne, Micaela, Dayahna, Jennifer, Shannon, Shelby, Sue and welcome to Michael and Jane.

Being in the team building business we are constantly talking to clients about the value of keeping their talent and how team building can boost morale during a layoff and get people to know each other better when things are booming. We are in the process of hiring and in dozens of interviews, one thing that I personally have learned to value is the people on our team, right now. It is much easier to keep good people than to find and train new ones. I want to share a story from an interview last week. This has a whole other lesson but you’ll get the point.

I had been looking forward to meeting this candidate for over a week since he replied to my help wanted ad. This particular ad was place on Craigslist where I have a great track record of finding who and what I want. The interviewee arrived and he was impeccably dressed and said all the right things. He was young, well spoken and had a great resume and references. After a tour of the office, I sent him over to meet the rest of our staff in our production and business office. The consensus was that this person would be a good addition to our team. I received a glowing reference. I was going to hire him. Right before I called him, I was sidetracked for a couple hours and I went back to the office that night at 7:30PM. I opened his resume and was picking up the phone when I made a quick decision. I had heard that employers did a Google search on their applicants. I thought that would be interesting to see if he had a Facebook or MySpace. So I put his name into my Google Search bar. I’m not sure if you can imagine my thoughts when he appeared on the page with an account of a recent arrest with photos and videos of him in an entirely different suit, an orange one, with handcuffs. I was stunned.

I called him and he confirmed that he was having an issue that should be resolved. I told him that when it was, to give me a call again. I called it a day and was thankful that I had the done the search. I have another interview today – and this time, a Google search is the first thing that I am doing. Moral of the story: Good people are hard to find. Look around you and appreciate the good people that you have working for and with you right now.

Here is the first part of the confession. I love Chick-Fil-A. I always have. Every since high school when I would go to the Cherry Hill Mall just to have that special chicken sandwich with the grilled bun and the pickle. Years later I would go out of my way in Williamsburg to find Chick-Fil-A, and when I visited my brother in Atlanta I would work my schedule around their not being open on a Sunday so that I could get my chicken sandwich fix. I even looked into a Chick-Fil-A franchise, every so briefly. I think I made my point.

During my recent trip to Atlanta I heard a McDonald’s commercial advertising a “Southern Chicken Sandwich”. When I heard it I thought, uh oh for Chick-Fil-A, McDonald’s is test marketing a similar sandwich. I felt bad for them, the work that they put in developing, marketing and delivering what I still believe is the best chicken sandwich, now to be taken on by McDonalds. Well, I thought, maybe the test would fail. Today they debut at my local McDonald’s and I confess, I ordered two sandwiches. As soon as my sandwich came, I unwrapped it, not from the familiar foil wrap but from the familiar styrofoam box that the Quarter Pounder comes in. I then popped the top and there was the grilled bun and the two pickles. So I took a bite. The honest truth, it was a good sandwich, but not even close to the original. However, with McDonalds behind it (one of our clients as is Burger King), I expect for those that don’t know Chick-Fil-A will enjoy it. Tomorrow they are giving them away for free.

So what does that have to do with team building? For those of you who have been reading my blog, in the team building business we are all challenged with copy cats. In a previous post one of my competitors (who called Teambonding the best in the business), challenged that innovation (by copying some of our programs) and made the argument that a copy can be an improvement to an original. We have had similar experience where we have updated and upgraded our original team building programs with great success, not however by copying our competitors. Having the Southern Chicken Sandwich and the new not so sweet, Sweet Tea, the argument can be made that innovation by copying isn’t innovation at all.

Will McDonald’s copy the Chick Fil-A cow and what about Maggie Moo?

Ok, so all of this team building inspiration has to come from somewhere right? Back in the day (well a few months ago) I used to start each day and check out all of my different websites. Then I discovered Google Reader which does it all for me, now all I have to do is go to one place, and all of my news is automatically updated. If you are reading this on your reader you know, if not, ask me and I’ll help you set it up. Let me share with you some of my favorite websites.

They sell one product every day, typically at a significant discount and when they sell out, they are done. Check out Woot

Here is a site and a concept that I love, CMarket. This company took the charity auction to a whole new level by bringing it onto the web. Now schools and non-profits can harness the audience of the internet and auction buyers can find great items and donate to a charity. They have helped raise over $42 million for charity. A true win-win. Check out Cmarket

This site calls themselves a directory of wonderful things and I couldn’t agree more. Boing Boing is a fantastic site with all sorts of interesting news, products, gadgets and ideas. Here is BoingBoing

I’m sure you have heard of this one. As an entrepreneur who fully supports other entrepreneurs, I have loaned and been paid back and loaned again to third world entrepreneurs. Check out Kiva

My list would not be complete without my personal inspiration, author Seth Godin. Every day I would click on his head to see what great pearls of wisdom were available to me. He has challenged me, inspired me and honestly, I believe he has saved my business. Read his blog, buy his books, check out: Seth Godin

I have lots of other websites and blogs on my Google Reader and this is what it tells me in what it calls trends. “From your 141 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 2,455 items, starred 2 items, shared 15 items, and emailed 7 items.” All that and working too. It’s a great hobby.

I will share more next month. Have a great day!

When I started writing this blog I hoped to introduce you to what I consider innovation in Teambonding and the team building industry. This week I had an interesting lesson in innovation.

One of my hobbies if you will is to check out what other companies are doing in the team building industry here in the US and abroad. It is amazing how many programs are similar not only from one company to the next but from one country to the next. When we were looking to change the name from our Spy School program, I found not less than 20 other companies world-wide offering spy themed programs including other Spy Schools. I wondered now and then how such similar programs were being developed simultaneously and what truly was innovative.

One of the very interesting parts of this type of business is the respect and catering to our clients, especially our repeat clients. Most want something new and different which is shortly followed up by a request for photos and references. We do our best to stay up with what is new and different in team building while offering the tried and true to be able to satisfy all types of clients.

So what did I learn this week? While searching the web I was a little surprised to find another local team building company had copied the colors of our website, had taken our forms, had created programs similar to ours and was deliberately trying to copy what we had created. I confronted the owner and got an interesting response. Without identifying the source, I would like to share his response. “The reality of business in general is that there’s very little in it that’s 100% original. Innovation is accomplished by making other people’s ideas better.”

That definition of innovation I can agree with. He gave the example of the iPhone and there so many examples in history where the creator of a particular invention didn’t get the fame and fortune. It was often the person or company that came in and made it better. Still, he and I agreed that there is a fine line between innovation and confusing the clients. He agreed to change the colors of his site and remove the items that were directly taken from Teambonding. So, I learned a little more about innovation, negotiation and communication.

Here is what Tom Peters says about Innovation. Maybe my competitor is innovative?

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I always look for a source of inspirational team building quotes for my signature, for my proposals, for my website and often just to see what people have said and are saying about the industry that I love. I thought my blog could be a good resource for you.

Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success. - Henry Ford

Michael, if you can’t pass, you can’t play. - Coach Dean Smith to Michael Jordan in his freshman year

We must all hang together, or assuredly, we shall all hang separately. - Benjamin Franklin

The ratio of We’s to I’s is the best indicator of the development of a team. - Lewis B. Ergen

A championship team is a team of champions. - Unknown

Teamwork: Simply stated, it is less me and more we. - Unknown

Teamwork is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results. - Unknown

Teams share the burden and divide the grief. - Doug Smith

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead

One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team. Kareem Abdul-Jabbor

It is better to have one person working with you than three people working for you. Dwight D. Eisenhower

A major reason capable people fail to advance is that they don’t work well with their colleagues. Lee Iacocca

Light is the task where many share the toil. Homer

No member of a crew is praised for the rugged individuality of his rowing. Ralph Waldo Emerson

What we need to do is learn to work in the system, by which I mean that everybody, every team, every platform, every division, every component is there not for individual competitive profit or recognition, but for contribution to the system as a whole on a win-win basis. W. Edward Deming

The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime. Babe Ruth

We are most effective as a team when we compliment each other without embarrassment and disagree without fear. - Unknown

A group is a bunch of people in an elevator. A team is also a bunch of people in an elevator, but the elevator is broken! Bonnie Edelstein

A boat doesn’t go forward if each one is rowing their own way. Swahili proverb

Wearing the same shirts doesn’t make a team. - Buchholz and Roth

A team is more than a collection of people. It is a process of give and take. - Barbara Glacel & Emile Robert Jr.

The basic building block of good teambuilding is for a leader to promote the feeling that every human being is unique and adds value. - Unknown

Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships. - Michael Jordan

None of us is as smart as all of us. - Ken Blanchard

No man is wise enough by himself. Plautus

Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success. Stephen Covey

If you don’t kick things around with people, you are out of it. Nobody, I always say, can be anybody without somebody being around. John Wheeler

In teamwork, silence isn’t golden, it’s deadly. Mark Sanborn

When a team outgrows individual performance and learns team confidence, excellence becomes a reality. - Joe Paterno

A group becomes a team when each member is sure enough of himself and his contribution to praise the skill of the others. - Norman S Hidle

All of us, at certain moments of our lives, need to take advice and to receive help from other people. Alexis Carrel, Reflections on Li

The greatest danger a team faces isn’t that it won’t become successful, but that it will, and then cease to improve. Mark Sanborn

We’re going to turn this team around 360 degrees. Jason Kidd

Teamwork doesn’t tolerate the inconvenience of distance. - Unknown

A single arrow is easily broken, but not ten in a bundle. Japanese proverb

It is amazing how much people get done if they do not worry about who gets the credit. Swahili proverb

There is not I in Teamwork. - Unknown

No one can whistle a symphony. It takes an orchestra to play it. - H.E. Luccock

You don’t get harmony when everybody sings the same note. Doug Floyd

Wild ducks make a lot of noise, but they also have the sense to benefit from occasionally flying in formation. - Unknown

It is amazing how much you can accomplish when it doesn’t matter who gets the credit. - Unknown

Teamwork divides the task and double the success. - Unknown

None of us, including me, ever do great things. But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful. Mother Teresa

Overcoming barriers to performance is how groups become teams. - …

Teamplayer: Once who unites others toward a shared destiny through sharing information and ideas, empowering others and developing trust. - Dennis Kinlaw

We trained hard, but it seemed every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization. Petronii Arbitri Satyricon AD 66

There are few, if any, jobs in which ability alone is sufficient. Needed, also, are loyalty, sincerity, enthusiasm and team play. William B. Given, Jr.

Build for your team a feeling of oneness, of dependence on one another and of strength to be derived by unity. Vince Lombardi

Individual commitment to a group effort, that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work. Vince Lombardi

It’s easy to get good players. Getting them to play together, that’s the hard part. Casey Stengel

Go Green Racing

From the first day we launched Teambonding, the discussion began on innovation. My lead facilitator and program creator only wanted to offer one-of-a-kind programs that weren’t offered by anyone else. As the salesperson at the time, I believed that clients wouldn’t trust a new company, with programs that they had never heard of. I proposed and we presented our original team building programs along with programs that clients were familiar with. The idea was that a new client would try our new company with a program that they had heard of and the following year or quarter, after the team building event was successful, they would then trust us and try something new. This was the balance in which Teambonding was created and it is a similar balance in which we now grow and thrive.

Just last week I checked in with my former facilitator, who had since left to start his own new company based on one-of-a-kind team building events that couldn’t be found anywhere else to see how that strategy was working today in a time where team building as an industry is growing and clients are always looking for what’s new and different. Interesting that he has come around to my way of thinking, as he now offers the Charity Bike Build, scavenger hunts and many other programs that can be found here at Teambonding and elsewhere.

Innovation in team building is a delicate balance. Clients trust us with their teams to deliver on our promises and with experience comes innovation. Successful culinary team building programs combined with philanthropic programs will produce a new Teambonding program called “Fare to Share”. A client request to donate to soldiers abroad will help us introduce our “Military Care Package” program and seeing the trend in Poker has inspired us to develop “Team Poker”. These are all great ideas and will be terrific team building programs that without a doubt you will see elsewhere but it is my theory as the industry leader in team building to lead. As the saying goes, lead, follow or get out of the way.

My children are on Facebook and recently I had heard that Facebook can be good for business so I got a Facebook account. I was very excited and found a few friends and one of my daughters agreed to be my friend and the other one, is a little embarrassed that I have my own and she won’t befriend me – teenagers . So after a little while of finding the youngest of my connections, and joining the team building group and the event group and theater and actor groups as a resource for our dinner theaters, I was starting to feel my age. Maybe my daughter was right, I needed to act my age. Then I found Linked In, kind of a Facebook for adults and I have been having great fun.

I am not sure exactly what I will continue to find on Linked In but I do encourage you to join. So far, the free membership has been great and I now have over 80 connections of people my age, in my industry, clients and other colleagues. I have had people write glowing recommendations for me and my team building company and I have also written recommendations for a few others. I have re-discovered former co-workers and an old friend from high school. I have posted a job and received responses and I have just recently written a new bio, joined some groups and I will continue to explore. Just last night I answered a question from a user looking for a culinary team building company. Linked In has me hooked.

If you are on it, feel free to connect to me and tell me how you’ve benefited from it. If you’re not on it, Link in, I think you’ll enjoy it!

On April 15, 2008, it will be 20 years. The planning started earlier but our first event was on April 15, 1988.

What a ride it has been and today, April 1st, no fooling when I thank the people, my team that have helped us become the company we are today, a company that builds great teams by being a great team. Through these doors have been writers, facilitators, actors, trainers and partners. Of all the people who have come and gone, I want to thank the one who I truly believe I could not have done it without. Our Director of Corporate Events, Jayne Hannah who walked through our doors almost 6 years ago has been the passion behind the programs, the quality, the fun and the connection between what I have created and those clients who enjoy the team building and corporate entertainment we create. I am not much for poetry but in our house, we have three strong women, my wife and two daughters and we have a poem by Suzy Toronto that says it all about them, “She Who Has a Great Attitude”. Today I found one that speaks to me about Jayne. Thanks Jayne!

The Wonder of a Woman

No matter what you ask of her, the answer is always the same

A resounding, “YES!”

And her word is as good as gold.

With her sink-or-swim attitude,

She tackles any assignment,

Jumping in with both feet.

And working like crazy

To learn, implement and complete the task.

It doesn’t matter

That she’s never done it before.

Her motto is “fake it ‘til you make it”

And it appears to everyone

That she can do anything.

She devotes her time and energy

To everyone she meets,

And her talents multiply exponentially.

She is the personification of a “can-do” girl.

The epitome of female power and intelligence

A true Wonder of a Woman!

by Suzy Toronto

This photo is from a TeamProv program for the Boston Chapter for the National Association of Catering Executives. Now that I have a blog, I can say, your turn to “Add the Caption”

Back in 2004 I sat in the office of my friend Gary Marino. Gary was and is one of my favorite people in the world. Gary owned an entertainment and video company and we worked together with many of our corporate clients and he was at a crossroads in his life. He was ready to do something else, something big, something inspiring and he had an idea. Gary you see is a big guy, at one time he weighed 397lbs and had always struggled with his weight. He was a food addict. Gary decided to walk from Florida to Boston to raise awareness to battle America’s obesity epidemic. This was before the Biggest Loser, Gary was the first and he was going to walk 10 miles a day through Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Washington, DC, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and through Massachusetts to his hometown of Boston, visiting with weight loss groups, wellness centers, schools, and elected officials along the way.

You see, when he did his walk the first time, he really made it happen. You have to imagine a big guy that is taking time off his successful career for something that he really believes in. Not just taking time off but putting his body through a 1,200 mile walk. He not only had to convince his wife and his friends but he had to raise money to make it happen. At that time, it seemed a little crazy but there was no denying Gary and as one of his friends, I supported his decision and knew his life was about to change, in a way that he could but I couldn’t have imagined.

He really worked hard to get people to see his vision, far ahead of the pack. I am proud to have introduced him to his financial sponsor, Todd Patkin, who financed the crew, the mobile home that followed him. his Gary’s belief in the goal and his creation of the Generation Excel Foundation, a non-profit corporation was as inspiring as the walk.

Gary was on the radio, in newspapers along the way and was followed and appeared live with Kelly and Regis. All along the way he was documenting the experience of the people he met and inspired and who inspired him, and he wrote a book, The Big and Tall Chronicles and produced a documentary, the Million Calorie March, the Movie. I was proud to walk with Gary the 10 miles coming into Richmond, Virginia, seeing him again in Stamford, Connecticut and finally meeting back in Boston for his welcome home party. Gary is one of those guys that you like as soon as you meet him and he is not done.

Gary is on the road again and here is what he just sent me:

“After 2 years off the road producing dozens of events locally with Generation Excel and the “Million Calorie March” movie – I’m pleased to get back to where our passion lies: motivational, educational and inspirational awareness campaigns. We have been working fast and furious in pre-production for the 600 mile, mountains to the sea “Million Step March”. A walking and fitness campaign this time – it is designed to inspire people in North Carolina to build 30 – 60 minutes of walking into their everyday lives and live longer, more productive, healthier, happier lives. To inspire them we’ll be walking 12 miles days through the mountains in Ashville, Charlotte, Winston Salem, Greensboro, Chapel Hill, Raleigh Durham, Greenville, and Fayetteville ending in Wilmington on the seashore this summer.

Just another health and fitness campaign? Well, try this on for size. I’m on the road with one of the most dynamic teams I’ve ever worked with it. From the CEO to the CMO down to the community relations, corporate communications to the public relations people – Blue Cross Blue Shield is going for it in a way which I’ve never seen. Joining us for this march is a state of the art mobile truck tour complete with lecture stages, multi-media rooms, kitchen demonstration truck (see attached photos) complete with seating for 40 people, an attraction called “The Workplace of the Future” (modern treadmills equipped with hi tech computers linking directly to the Million Step March website). Did I mention the giant inflatable “Shoe Box Theater” (photo attached) for guest speakers and screenings of the “Million Calorie March” documentary? As if that isn’t enough we’re barnstorming the state with 60 interactive live events in a 75 day period. Dr. Howard Rankin, from the MCM movie will be with us for a select number of dates as well. We’re inviting people out via TV commercials, radio ads, an interactive website moving billboards, sponsorships, blogs, you name it.

The new website for his new walk is www.betterhealthNC.com

I am proud to know Gary and if you are in North Carolina, or in need of a motivational speaker who really “walks the walk”. I encourage you to get in touch with Gary. He continues to inspire me.