by Ed Graziano, Corporate Event Interactive
There are many decisions for a planner to make when hosting a team program for a company meeting or retreat. These decisions include selecting the right teambuilding company or facilitator, finding the right venue, deciding on the best program activity and understanding what participants should “walk away with”; such as making new connections, or better understanding everyone’s role within the team.
Often lost in this process is deciding if a program should be run competitively or non-competitively. It is a misconception to think that a competitive group will only do well within a competitive environment. These groups actually are often the ones that would benefit the most from an opportunity to work together on an activity or project run non-competitively, where the entire group wins by participating. The insight that a team’s collaborative efforts helps the entire group succeed is often more valuable than knowing their team can “beat” other teams in a particular challenge.
On the other hand, friendly competition can be healthy if run correctly. When a small group of participants truly work together at a challenge, it can be very rewarding as they collaborate, show sportsmanship and bond together. Many sports oriented challenges such as Corporate Olympiads, adventure hunts and build-your-own boat or racecar events are set up to promote competition. But beware, if a program is not produced tightly, or teams are not distributed equally, this approach can lead to other teams and participants resenting the winners. Claims of cheating or favoritism can creep in and instead of creating organizational unity; winning teams show up losing teams and losing teams give up or try to foul up winning teams.
Does this mean that team activities should never be competitive? Absolutely not! Depending on the situation, friendly competition can generate excitement and keep teams actively engaged. It can also be a good stimulator for participants who are usually not very competitive, or need to be more competitive to survive in their fast paced business environment.
Here are guidelines on adding competition to help you plan a beneficial team activity:
1) Determine what you want participants to get out of the program. If creating a sense of competitiveness within the organization is important (such as a sales team), then adding an element of competition can be healthy.
2) Work with a trained facilitator or team-building company to consider how a non-competitive activity might be structured and what some of the potential benefits are from this type of scenario. Examples of non-competitive activities may include building a playground or bicycles for a charity or tasking teams to accomplish a series of challenges with a group debrief at the end discussing roles and responsibility instead of awarding prizes.
3) Be sure teams are equally created along the lines of age, gender and employee position.
4) If it is decided to include competition, don’t announce or update team scores until the very end of the activity. It may be nice to have scoreboard updates when following a collegiate sports competition, but in a corporate setting keeping scores a mystery allows every team to feel like they have a chance throughout the activity.
5) Stay away from large or financial prizes for winning teams. Teams often benefit enough from the recognition they receive at the end of the event for winning the competition. Ribbons, novelty prizes or low dollar amount gift certificates work well. Large financial prizes can again create a sense of resentment and a team or two might feel cheated. If there is a financial prize, consider a monetary donation given to the winning team’s favorite charity.
No matter what approach you take, it is important to add interactive or team programs to the overall meeting agenda where participants can be actively involved in meeting new people, solving challenges and generating excitement. The key point is to be sure to step back, fully understand your group’s program objectives, and then determine if adding an element of competition is the best way to accomplish these objectives.