A workplace is an ecosystem that has a culture of its very own. When you are building a functioning team at your business, you have to be mindful of the culture to foster unity and good working conditions. First, you must define the culture of your office. A culture in an office is the shared beliefs, goals, and strategies that keep you bound together as a unit. If you are a company, you need as many people in your team to buy into your vision as possible. They also need to be able to work well together to actuate those goals. That takes place inside of the office as well as outside of it.
When you are outside of the office, you need to build bonds of friendship as well as trust. Such trust can be built through workplace activities, but it can also be built through fun. That’s where winter sports enter the equation. Team building in Auckland can include cooperative activities as well as competitive activities.
Cooperative Activities
Activities such as learning to ski or snowboard together are cooperative activities. They also help to build trust and bonds. If members of your team are all learning to ski or snowboard together, they will be naturally inclined towards helping one another learn the necessary skills. It’s natural for someone to ask for help if they trust the person they’re asking. If you are learning to snowboard for the first time and everyone around you is an expert snowboarder, you might be reluctant to ask for help.
That’s why it’s important to put together groups of people who are at similar skill levels. They will trust each other and not be embarrassed to ask for help. Ideally, that sort of trust will then translate to your workplace. If they are open to asking for help on the ski slopes, hopefully they will also be open to asking for help when you are back in the office. Doing low-risk activities together can also help build trust since the people in question will not feel pressure to be perfect.
Competitive Activities
It might seem counterintuitive, but competition can actually create bonds as well. For example, tubing races or sledding races can be competitions between different individuals or teams. When you compete against someone, you learn how they behave when the pressure is on. It’s a good way to learn who is calm when losing and who is gracious when winning. If someone loses a race to someone else and the winner is gracious, that can build a bond of trust. Such competition gives people the trust needed to make a mistake or ask for help without worrying about mocking or scorn.
Eating Together
It’s also important for a team to eat together. It might seem simple like a regular activity, but the act of sharing food is a way of creating trust. That’s why so many activities and dates involve eating. You let your guard down a little bit when you are eating.
Building unity and trust is absolutely critical for a successful workplace culture.
