The power of play is the best way to get you working as a team today. If you’re here, it means you are looking for ways to help your team bond through experiences to become a more cohesive, collaborative and more productive unit, right?
The answer is team play.
Even though this sounds like “just having fun”, there is a lot more behind team playing than you realize.
Getting your staff working as a team is critical to the future of your business and we believe using team play is the key to making this happen. But we’re not just making this up because we like to play!
The method behind our madness is based on a growing mountain of evidence that shows employees who play as a team are:
- More productive
- More creative
- Healthier
- More motivated
- More flexible and resilient
- Better able to meet job demands
A major benefit of our approach is learning to tap into your brain’s right hemisphere, which is often underutilized in the workplace.
Long thought to be useful only to artists, writers and musicians, we now understand that right-brain thinking also plays a vital role in the business world.
Your right brain is the location that holds your imagination, creativity and intuition.
Do you want your team to be able to brainstorm better ways of doing things, find new ways to solve problems or ___________? The key is to get them to engage the right side of their brain… through play.
Why Team Play is Important at Work
Team Playing is Involving
The best way to learn new skills is through action – by actually doing things.
Research shows that when people just sit and listen to a teacher, they retain only 20% of what they hear. But participants involved in active learning (doing a real job, a simulation, a training game, etc.) retain 90% of the information.
Would that kind of retention make a difference on your team? We thought so!
Keep reading to learn more about how play can help you start working as a team, which can play a critical role in the future success of your business.
Teamwork Play is Low Risk
Failure is a part of life, and part of the work environment. But it also can lead to tremendous success.
Consider this:
- Edison discovered over 1,800 ways not to build a light bulb
- One of Madame Curie’s “failures” gave us radium
- Columbus was looking for India when he found America
Mistakes are simply an integral part of innovation and play provides a safe environment where your team can explore, risk, try new ideas and make mistakes.
When you allow your team to practice working as a team through a risk-free environment, they may discover the next light bulb!
Team Play Explores Team Dynamics
Every group possesses a distinct personality that is all its own. As a leader, it is important to understand the personality of your team.
- How does your team function, breathe, eat, produce, communicate and plan?
- How does it make decisions?
- What are its unique weaknesses and strengths?
- How does the group adapt to change?
When you see your staff working as a team through play, it gives you all these answers. It allows you to examine and evaluate your group’s dynamics under controlled conditions.
Team Play Promotes Self-Awareness
Play gives your team members the chance to view themselves and their teammates in a new light. We hear it again and again: “I had no idea Harry was so creative!” or “Who knew Mary was that clever?”
When your team becomes more aware of themselves, and those around them, they can dramatically improve their effectiveness as a team.
Playing as a Team Builds Trust
Everyone within a group becomes more comfortable as they become more familiar with their co-workers, sharpen their awareness of group dynamics, and begin to clearly understand where they fit in.
When you allow your team to practice working as a team in a play environment, it effectively builds trust within your whole team.
Team Play Shows the Value of the Team
Many people on your team are likely so competitive, or so inexperienced at working as a team, that they question the benefits of teamwork.
Fun team exercises afford skeptics the opportunity to see that sharing information and responsibilities can bring amazing results. Group play also affords participants an opportunity to discover the strong value of diversity.
Play is an excellent tool for convincing the skeptics on your team of the value of working as a team.
Team Play Promotes Pleasure
Studies have shown that there is a direct correlation between pleasure and productivity.
Pleasure also affects participants’ commitment to the exercise, helping them learn more and retain knowledge longer. It makes perfect sense that pleasure would be a powerful motivator for your team.
The pleasure of learning through play can work wonders to revitalize your group and rebuild team morale.
Teamwork Play Provides Goal-Oriented Lessons
Each TeamBonding event delivers its own lessons, skills and experiences for participants.
You can choose events that focus on:
- Problem solving
- Improved communication skills
- Working as a team
- New happenings within your organization
- Getting your team better acquainted
- Group lessons or a more individual focus
- Just about anything else you want!
You can even choose events that are more physical in nature (like a great scavenger hunt) to get them moving.
If you have a goal for a Team Building event, we can design an event that will help you reach it.
TeamBonding has the expertise to help you select a program that can use play to get people working as a team to mesh perfectly with your goals. Play with us! You, your team and your business will all reap the powerful benefits of the power of play.
