Corporate Team Building in Dubai

Team Building Activities

Browsing the options for Team Building activities in Dubai, there are numerous choices on the market from business games to desert safaris. If you want to experience something a little more challenging, however, you might consider a corporate sailing regatta, or simply a team building afternoon, sailing the beautiful waters of the Arabian Gulf.

The event can be run as part of a conference/regional meeting as an afternoon activity, or as a full day, with onshore sailing/navigation exercises built in to target particular areas of concern within the team - communication, team work or leadership skills.

The venue for this exciting day on the water is the 101 Marina, One & Only, The Palm, in Dubai, and the Emirates Palace Marina, in Abu Dhabi. Yachts vary from Beneteau First 45 racer/cruisers, to an Ocean Voyager 74 sailing catamaran. The event is suitable for non sailors as well as those with experience, as the yachts are skippered by qualified RYA Yachtmaster's who have considerable racing experience. There is also one regular crew member onboard, but the idea is that the corporate guests learn to crew the yacht themselves in preparation for the race in the second half of the afternoon.

Offshore photography and team colours add some excitement to the racing, whilst the debrief and prize giving ceremony, over sunset drinks and canapes, perfectly complement a high adrenaline and challenging afternoon.

The use of yacht racing as a platform for leadership development and team building began after the 2000/1 BT Global Challenge. The race became the basis of a study to provide an understanding of what makes a high performing leader and how to sustain competitive advantage. Over time, this has been translated into lessons on successful team development, and yacht racing is now used internationally as the basis for delivering cutting edge corporate training.

January 2012 saw the Volvo Ocean Race yachts stop in Abu Dhabi for an exhilarating weekend of close racing before they headed of to Sanya, China on Leg 3 of their round the world challenge. Local residents were able to get up close to the action and understand a bit more about how a racing team works. This introduction paved the way for increased interest in team building on the water and at Eden Yachting we are continually looking at new and creative ways to work with UAE companies so they can add a yacht racing or 'learn to sail' challenge to their global or regional conference.

Jane Daly is a Managing Partner for Eden Yachting, an international yacht charter agency based in Dubai. A keen sailor and an experienced travel writer, Jane worked for many years in the travel industry before setting up Eden Yachting with partner Philippe Saad. Chartering is a fantastic way to see the secret places of the world and Jane shares her passion through her writing and her business. http://www.edenyachting.com/

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Does Team Building Work?

Team Building Activities

A recent survey carried out in Britain by Vodafone UK and YouGov.com suggests team building doesn't work. Surveyed workers indicated they feel some team building activities can be a "waste of time, and at worst, are toe-curlingly embarrassing." The majority surveyed (66%) have participated in some form of team building and more than half (54%) don't feel the experience helped them in working with their peers.

Participants in the survey indicated they would like to learn to communicate more effectively at work rather than being "forced to build rapport with their co-workers by sharing adrenaline experiences or performing 'trust' exercises."

The catchall term team building seems to be the major flaw in this study. Categorizing all activities attempting to improve team functioning as "team building," would be like labeling all health services as "medicine." To carry this analogy to the extreme the term health providers would include everyone from untrained sales clerks in health food stores to brain surgeons.

Anyone can build a website and offer team building programs. Obviously it's a "buyer beware" situation, as there are no licensing requirements or regulation. Some of the "toe-curlingly embarrassing" events cited in the survey included enduring bikini-clad "bed baths," massages from colleagues, and lingerie parties. I can only imagine what Human Resource professionals in the United States would have to say about these absurd experiences.

If we drop the obviously risqué extremes mentioned in the study, there remains a continuum of events. At one side you have programs designed primarily for fun and entertainment. I call this team bonding. On the other side of the continuum are workshops / curriculum backed by research and conducted by experienced trainers with a goal to modify behavior in the workplace. For descriptive purposes I label these programs team development. Let's take a look at each extreme in more detail.

Team bonding has a valuable role to play at conferences and meetings. Charity Team Building and Outdoor Team Building can energize the participants and relieve some of the tedium of classroom meetings. These fun events promote the development of relationships, a sense of esprit de corps, and... well, the bonding of teammates. There can be some serious lessons learned about team functionality, but the primary purpose is a few hours of fun.

Team development tackles complicated, problematic team dynamics. There should always be a measurable goal in these efforts. A well-planned program will involve a detailed assessment phase where specific positive and negative behaviors are identified. The training company will then offer a clear agenda to maximize the strengths and eliminate some of the weaknesses. Once the plan is accepted the provider should supply experienced, qualified professionals to conduct the training. These types of programs usually require days instead of hours.

A previous article I wrote entitled, Selecting a Quality Team Building Company, can be found on Ezine. It provides a step-by-step guide to finding the best provider to meet your specific needs. With planning on your company's part a determination can be made as to what you want to accomplish. Finally by following the checklist you will locate the training company best qualified to help you achieve your goals.

Richard Highsmith, rick@qualityteambuilding.com, is President of Quality Team Building. He has twenty-five years experience training and coaching. He has built and sold two successful businesses. To learn more about becoming a team leader visit our website at http://www.qualityteambuilding.com/ or call Rick toll-free at 1-888-484-8326 X101.

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The Right Kind of Employee

Team Building Activities

True leadership courses through the kind of company that the right kind of employee wants to work for, as blood courses through the body. Indeed, leadership is the lifeblood of any successful company. Without leadership, the company is not and cannot be successful, regardless of how it may appear.

What does leadership mean to the right kind of employee?

It means he won't be treated like a piece of equipment that the boss expects to do the same things in the same ways, day after week after month after year to produce the same results.

It means he won't be micromanaged. Rather he will be valued for his creativity and abilities. He can use his creativity, his intelligence, his spirit, and his stamina to help create better products or services, improve customer service, improve sales, revenues, and profits, increase productivity and quality. And to improve himself, his job, his department, and the company. That is the culture in a company that the right kind of employee wants to work for. There is an insistence that he contribute his talents daily to making the company better.

It means he knows he will be held accountable for certain results, and for achieving those results within certain time frames. That kind of challenge will turn on the right kind of employee. This is not a company where employees do only bits and pieces of projects and don't really understand or experience how what they do contributes to the project as a whole.

It means he knows he won't be manipulated by people who feel they have it all figured out and don't need his help in thinking about things. The executives of the company that the right kind of employee wants to work for understand that they are not perfect, and everything about the company can be improved. They understand that they and the company must be willing to change anything or even everything to make it work better.

It means she knows that she must not leave her brain at home. She must think all of the time about what she can do to contribute. She knows that trying to contribute will not be in vain. Her ideas and dreams are listened to and carefully considered.

Tom Peters said that virtually everything is invented by the wrong person, in the wrong group, in the wrong company, in the wrong industry, at the wrong time, for the wrong reason, with the wrong set of end users. The right kind of employee knows that that is not wrong at all. It is very much right. It is only wrong for non-leaders who don't want to have their tidy little dysfunctional lives and companies disturbed by someone who can really make a positive difference if the company will just let things be changed when necessary.

It means that the company doesn't hire people based only on resume fodder. The company looks at potential employees for their humanness. The company wants to know what makes them tick, what excites them, what brings out their best. The company doesn't try to reduce all jobs to the base level and then try to employ people for the least they can pay them. The company that the right kind of employee wants to work for understands that the more intelligent and able their employees are, the more they can use innovation to geometrically improve revenues, profits, and all other positive ratios and results.

A company gets and retains the right kind of employee by being the right kind of company. If the company is not the right kind of company-i.e. run with true leadership, the right kind of employee will not apply to work there, or if she does, and is hired, she will be miserable to a degree and will want to leave. She is a creative leader, and if she has to damp down those desirable characteristics to comply with a poor company culture, she will not thrive in that environment. People are meant to be free and don't operate well when suppressed.

Why should a company care about having the right kind of employee?

That is like asking why a person should want to drink clean water or eat disease-free food. The right kind of employee helps make and keep a company healthy. Circumstances act on companies. Companies not founded on and operated with true leadership get washed about and often suffer and flounder in adverse circumstances. The right company with the right kind of employees is willing and able to guard against circumstances and to change anything at any time to be able to survive and thrive regardless of what is going on outside the company.

Weldon Smith is the author of the book True Leadership and False Counterfeits, which explains what True Leadership is, and why any other idea of what Leadership is does not work. Furthermore, Leaders are not only those who have followers. Every success in every aspect of life is the result of practicing true Leadership.

Please visit my website at http://www.leadwithtruth.com/ to subscribe to my free newsletter or to read my book.

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Teamwork Characteristic 5: The Awareness Ability

Team Building Activities

A team of true team players consists of individuals that have many characteristics, four of which we have previously explored: Competency, Commitment, Adaptability, Communication, and the topic of today's article: Awareness.

Achieving a balance between objectivity and subjectivity can be a struggle, especially because who we are and the experiences we've had - are valuable. On the other hand, our background can make us biased in ways that interfere with our ability to remain open-minded, which is why a level of objectivity is also advantageous.

Think of it like this: let's say you were part of a basketball team, and you were asked to reflect on the interaction and communication of the players on the court. Now, if your information intake only included your experience in the heat of the game, on the court, you would be missing a whole other perspective. But, if you never got off the bench, again, you wouldn't have much personal experience of the players' interaction to assess the actual participation.

Only taking into account your experience isn't beneficial, but never considering it is also a problem. It's all about balance. An all-or-nothing approach isn't an appropriate way to achieve awareness.

There are two different degrees of awareness. The first level includes the ability to monitor your own behavior and modify it accordingly, so that you can maximize your performance. The second level involves your capacity to contribute to your group's performance process. This requires a mature perspective that it's not all about you, and a humble acknowledgement that you also influence the group's performance (positively, and in some cases, negatively).

Are you willing to recognize that you're part of the process, without being solely subjective or overly objective? Ask yourself a few questions to get an idea of how you form your impressions:

If your manager approached your entire team and disappointingly reported that a deadline had been missed, what would you do? Would you hope to find the guilty member to blame for the mishap, so that you get off the hook? Or would you encourage your team to take responsibility together?
If an approach that you suggested your team take suddenly went wrong, would you be willing to change the strategy or would you be determined to demonstrate that it wasn't your suggestion that was wrong, but rather it was the way your team executed it that was?

Awareness includes a willingness to acknowledge that which you would rather ignore.

Doug C. Watsabaugh, senior partner at WCW Partners, understands how to meet your unique performance challenges. With more than 20 years of experience, WCW Partners is a performance-improvement company that helps businesses revitalize their results and achieve record-breaking performance.

If you are looking to excel in sales, service or leadership, let Doug develop the capability in you! http://wcwpartners.com/.

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Developing a Project Code of Conduct

Team Building Activities

A code of conduct can come in many forms:

The Marines use "Semper Fi (delis)" ('Always Faithful') as a promise that they will not let each other down.The Golden Rule of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."Even Colonel Sanders', "We do chicken right!" was a type of value statement that helped KFC workers and customers share similar expectations of fried chicken.

A very effective way to do this is on a project is in a meeting with the project principles, project department heads, and some 'high-potential' project employees before the project starts bringing aboard the rest of the team.

Please let me clarify something before we go farther. This code of shared values is not intended to replace the compliance regulations required by government agencies; specifications and procedures required by insurance companies; or the policies from the Human Resources or Safety departments on the project.

It is intended to identify and publicize the unspoken expectations that we all have of each other on a project. Unfortunately, even though these are traditionally unspoken, we still expect coworkers to be aware of them and comply with them. Then we get upset when they do not.

Here is how you can present it to your audience:

You: "What value do you think a code of conduct has for an organization?" Keep asking until you get an answer similar to this, "It defines their expectations of each other. It gives them guidance for action where there are no specific rules and regulations."Then ask, "Do you think our project qualifies as an 'organization'?" (You should get agreement on this.)Next, "Do you think we could avoid some potential friction among team members if we could identify and publish a Code of Conduct for our project?" (Expect more agreement, here.)"If so, what kind of behaviors would we want in our Code?"

You may get many suggestions with this question but they will probably distill down into thoughts like these:

Be reliable. Get to work on time (or early); meet your promised deadlines (or earlier); and follow through on your promises to team members whether project related or personal.Share knowledge if possible and ask for help when needed.Smile and be as friendly as you can. We are all in this together.Consider your behavior as seen through the eyes of your peers. (If they were asked, "What is it like to work with you, what would you want them to say?" Then be sure your actions would make it easy for them to make those comments about you.)Trust is historic. Team members have to learn they can trust you.

Some limitations you should consider while developing this code is the temptation for some to be 'preachy', too lengthy, or too much like specific rules that already exist somewhere else on the project.

Try to discourage this as much as you can because short, concise, and easy-to-remember statements are more likely to be used by the workforce. But, if they insist that is what they want, then give it to them because it is their project and they are agreeing (by arguing their points) they are willing to live by them.

After all, this is all you were after, anyway!

Richard ("Dick") Grimes has used his 30+ years experience in training and operations management for private and public organizations as a foundation for his company, Outsource Training.biz LLC.

Human Resource professionals can earn pre-approved, re-certification training hours by visiting his website, http://www.outsourcetrainingonline.com/. If they send an email to him after taking a course with the word "Ezine" in the subject line, they'll get a $25 REBATE on the course.

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Teaching Our Players How To Handle Conflict

Team Building Activities

Our first inclination when we're around someone we don't get along well with is to run away. We avoid them, we discretely leave the room as soon as they enter it, we just stay away. And that works most times...except on teams.

When I saw the title of this Harvard Business Review, I just knew I needed to bring it on over here. Conflict in groups is normal and the emotion that goes along with it is how I'm sure the author came up with this title: How to Work with Someone You Hate. I know it sounds harsh, but conflict left to fester will definitely end up in this place.

Do's & don'ts helping your players work alongside someone who drives them crazy

DO NOT assume it's all about the other person. It's easy to put the fault on others, but most times each person has played a part in creating a bad relationship. It could be that these two people wouldn't be friendly outside of the team, so their relationship isn't going to be the greatest. The best way to advise our players in this situation is to believe the best about the other person. Perhaps they do drive each other crazy, but it's not malicious.

DO NOT gossip. Oh, it's so easy to "innocently" say to a teammate, "What's up with Susie? She's always such a jerk." And thus is starts...the drama! We've got to make sure our captains keep their eyes and ears peeled for this kind of talk, because they're our first line of defense. They should encourage both players to talk to each other rather than gossiping about one another to their teammates. Our captains also need to know at what point they need to involve the coaches in the conflict.

DO NOT confront with bad motives. Have you ever had someone tell you they're giving you a correction "for your own good" and then proceed to rip you to shreds? It's something we've got to warn our players about as we advise them to talk to the player who's driving them crazy. If part of their talk includes letting their teammate know that everyone on the team thinks they're awful and hates them, then maybe they can hold off on the confrontation until they're a little less emotional.

DO manage emotions. Sure, we want our players to learn how to manage conflict and gently confront their teammates when necessary. Before they get to that point though, we should challenge our players to do all they can to stay positive. If they're walking into practice with a chip on their shoulder about the player who's driving them crazy...conflict is inevitable. It goes back to believing the best about their teammates.

DO try to get to know them. It's too easy to make assumptions about folks...especially if we don't bother to get to know them. Players assume others don't like them because one player always looks grumpy or has a sassy attitude around them. What they may not know is that's the player's personality. They're not just sassy with one player, they're sassy with them all! Maybe knowing that it's a personality thing, and not a personal thing, will help everyone get along better.

Conflict is inherently emotional. Hopefully our players aren't at the "hate" stage, but even if they are, we've got some good tips to bring them back from the brink.

Dawn Redd is the Head Volleyball Coach at Beloit College. Come visit Coach Dawn's community of coaching nerds and team leaders over at her blog, http://www.coachdawnwrites.com/, where she teaches how to become an excellent coach, motivate individuals, and build successful teams.

Her book, Coach Dawn's Guide To Motivating Female Athletes, is available for purchase on her website.

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Free Team Building Exercises for the Workplace

Team Building Activities

Building a great team is the number one way to build team morale, and instill a sense of community at the workplace. Team building can be anything from a quick half day "get together" to a week-long company retreat. Each of these ways will bring your employees closer together and help you get to the bottom line much faster. Team building will also help each team player with self-improvement, giving you a more well-rounded staff, long-term.

Studies have shown that employees who are involved with these exercises are more likely to stick with the company long-term. They are also more likely to create bonds and friendships with others at the workplace. These are all things that will help a company thrive, and the good news is, it does not have to be expensive.

In order to create free team building exercises for the workplace, you are going to need to get creative. Some great ideas for free team building exercises at the work place are:

Outdoor activities: When you bring your team outside, there are many things that you can do, without breaking the bank. Outdoor games and activities will also bond your team, better than in-house activities. Adventure games such as capture the flag and a scavenger hunt are free, yet bonding. Team work is needed in order to be the wining team, in both of these events. Keep in mind, you should always put people who are not close together on a team, rather than let the teams decide. This will allow the staff to meet and understand new people.

Office gathering: There are some great ways to get to know one another in the board room. From mock procedures to learning about each other. Asking question about the way the company is run, and what changes can be made, is also a great way to find out what the team thinks, as well as create a closer bond. These activities can last from a few hours to a day.

Picnic: Although this may not be "free" it is very in expensive and can pay off big. When you plan a monthly or bi monthly activity, off work hours, you will notice a big difference in staff moral. This picnic or day at the park can be a "pot luck" meaning everyone brings something, making it cost-effective. There is no time off work or space to book when you use this method. Families of team members are also invited, making it more of a social gathering.

There are quite a few ways to make team building a free event. And since there are so many benefits to team building, there really is no excuse not to get involved. Free team building activities for the work place can be found on government sites as well as University information sheets. Working with a team who is eager to please and ready to get involved is the very best way to insure you are running a happy and copacetic work place environment.

To get more out of your team building check out my Team Building Activities website. It has tons of great content to ensure you're successful building great teams.

You can even find articles on awesome Team Building Exercises.

Just click either of the above links to take your team building to the next level.

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