Team Socializing vs. Team Building

More and more organizations are spending scarce resources on team socializing events like whitewater rafting, paintball, and Friday afternoon happy hour. Why? Some managers see these activities as a way to satisfy and retain employees, especially millennials, who they believe value such things. Some have been persuaded that they will see a measurable improvement in team performance. And for others, this is the only kind of team building they know, so they're just doing what’s familiar. Besides, what’s not to like about happy hour!

Given the many false and misleading claims about the value of employee perks and team building, who could blame a manager for following this trend? For example, a recent Inc. article claimed that “workplace happy hours are driving employee happiness up 66 percent.” Amazing – but false. The “study” in question simply found that 66% of employees who got free snacks or drinks at work reported being happy in their jobs. They didn't report how many snackless employees were happy, but I doubt it was zero percent.

I put the word “study” in quotes because this poll about the importance of snacks was sponsored by – wait for it – a company that sells snacks. Stay tuned for more team building "studies" from beer, nacho, and cannabis companies.

By contrast, more credible sources like Gallup came to the opposite conclusion. In their 2016 study How Millennials Want To Work and Live, Gallup found that:

"Most millennials don’t care about the bells and whistles found in many workplaces today – the Ping-Pong tables, fancy latte machines, and free food that companies offer to try to create job satisfaction. Giving out toys and entitlements is a leadership mistake – and it’s condescending. Purpose and development drive this generation."

When it comes team building, I know some very talented and dedicated professionals who take team building seriously. Still, there are plenty of others who will charge you handsomely to play picnic games (“to help your staff bond and build lasting relationships”), play with horses (“to reveal the hidden dynamics of your team”) or build toy boats (“to identify leadership characteristics of your attendees.”). Yes, those are real quotes from a real company.

If you just want to blow off some steam and take the team out of the office for a day of fun and socializing, that’s awesome. Just don't tell the CFO to expect any payoff back at the office. Kenneth Stålsett works at NTNU’s Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management, and wrote his doctoral thesis on team development. He says:

"It’s fine to have fun at work, but there’s no research showing that activities like these result in improved workplace interaction afterwards – even though corporate team building companies may claim otherwise."

A note of caution might actually be in order because some so-called team building activities can backfire and end up hurting team cohesion. Stålsett says that activities that differ too much from how employees work every day can make some people uncomfortable and could lead to unexpected and even negative consequences back at the office.

For example, highly introverted computer programmers might dislike collaboration games that require them to lie down on the floor inches away from their coworkers. And imagine the middle aged manager with a fear of heights who finds himself standing terrified on top of a cliff, being urged by colleagues to rappel down to prove he’s a “a team player.” Suddenly he goes from long-time team member to outsider.

Stålsett's research shows that relevance is key for team development to be effective, along with surroundings that are similar to employees’ everyday working conditions. In other words, the opposite of what many people do when it comes to team building:

"Paintball and rafting may constitute effective team training if you’re a soldier or a stuntman – but not if you’re an engineer or accountant and work in an office."

So what about the team building benefits of socializing events like happy hour? MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory studies the group dynamics that characterize high-performing teams. They actually looked into the ROI of happy hour and found ... that there isn’t one. For example:

The managers at one software start-up thought they could promote better communication among employees by hosting beer meets and other similar events. But researchers found that these events had little or no effect.

In contrast, their research revealed that making the tables in the company’s lunchroom longer, so that strangers sat together, had a huge impact. Why? Because, as other research has shown, this kind of cross-pollination across organizational silos strengthens teams and drives performance.

One study by Ryerson University professor Sean Wise even found that teams can have too much cohesion, to the point where they lapse into groupthink, impeding their overall performance and ability to innovate.

In short, if you want to engage your employees and build stronger teams, taking them out to socialize isn't the way to do it. Remember, purpose and development drive employees, and not just millennials. They also are key to retention. A massive study by Gallup of 200,000 employees found that:

"The lack of development and career growth is the No. 1 reason employees leave a job."

This finding has been replicated in other studies as well. And as Gallup notes in its report, “development” doesn’t have to mean getting promoted or going on expensive courses. Effective development is a process of understanding each person’s unique talents and finding roles, positions and projects that allow them to combine their talents and abilities with experiences to build strengths.

Here's one example of a team building and development project that didn't start out as one – and didn't cost anything extra. In his wonderful new book Alive at Work: The Neuroscience of Helping Your People Love What They Do, Dan Cable tells the story of a team from Microsoft working with a key customer. Microsoft regularly send teams to visit key clients such as Tesla with the goal of trying to understand the client’s challenges and develop solutions. To achieve this goal, they field a fairly diverse, cross-functional team and spend several day with the company.

So what happened after they recently visited Tesla and helped them with their pain points? The Microsoft team came away energized by their success, which was fueled by the contributions made by team members from all levels of the team. According to the Microsoft country leader in charge:

“We found that getting to know each other better in the context of solving a partner’s problems was more meaningful and a far better team-building experience than ropes exercises or off-site discussions.”

Furthermore, this senior executive came away thoroughly impressed by the contributions made by staff from different levels of the company “Lower-level Microsoft employees asked very different questions from managers and leaders, which increased the company’s credibility with the customers.”

Your employees are more ready than you think to embrace this kind of company-relevant goal-based learning and development, according to the latest issue of Harvard Business Review. In fact, the article’s title says it all: “Your Workforce Is More Adaptable Than You Think.” Two key recommendations for managers emerging from a massive worldwide study of employees and managers:

1. Don’t just set up training programs – create a learning culture. This builds teams, increases your ability to promote from within, and decreases turnover related costs.
2. Engage employees in the transition instead of herding them through it. When you engage employees in deciding the “how” they are more likely to buy into the “what” and the “why.”

This links nicely with some best practices from academic research on team building. According to one study on the subject, managers who are serious about team building should:

• Integrate team building with real-time work goals.
• Focus on team building that results in actionable ideas to help the team and the organization achieve their goals.
• Emphasize and reinforce continuous learning.

I'll give the last word to Kate Mercer, author of A Buzz In the Building: How to Build and Lead a Brilliant Organization, who says:

“The best team-building activities are the ones that firms should all be working on anyway: For example, creating strategy for the short, medium and long-term future.”

Something to think about this Friday afternoon during happy hour. Cheers!