It’s not easy being a small business in 2012, in fact, it was not easy in 2011, 2010, 2009 and things were starting to bite at the tail end of 2008. So, now, more than ever, your team needs to be motivated, your business needs to be performing, and most importantly of all, your customers need to be happy.

Team Spirit and Morale

How do you feel about your team members? Are they your friends? Or are they just some people that come in to the office, take time off sick and do the least possible to get through their day?

Whether you like it or not, your team members are the backbone of your business and are your greatest asset so if you don’t treat them as such they will not be performing at their best abilities. Neglecting to look after your team and motivate them, which can be done easily with simple, fun team building games is one of the biggest mistakes you can make as a small business owner and introducing team building activities - big or small represents a huge opportunity to fine tune your team and improve motivation and performance.

Get your team members into shape and everything else will follow suit - you will reap the rewards, keep your customers happy, your bank manager happy and see results where it matters.

Why run team building activities?

Nobody would expect a sporting team to work to the best of their ability without some well structured management and team building yet, small business often expect their teams to, well, to just work. If you want your team to perform well, you have to help them perform well and team building activities are the best way to achieve that.

Choosing Team Building Activities

The right team building games will always depend on the group, any existing problems and the goals that you have for the team. If your team are at each others throats, then something highly competitive is not going to work out, instead you want something to make them realise how much they need each other. If you have a new team, you need to break the ice, build team spirit and get everyone working well together.

A simple system would include some icebreaker activities, some team spirit activities and some general teamwork activities to supercharge team performance and then some ongoing team building activities to ensure that the team continues to perform at it’s best.

When should you start team building?

Yesterday, today, now. Simply put, start right away, you are the team leader so start thinking about how you can use team building and work it into your week and you will be glad you did.

Benefits of Team Building

As a recap, let's just look at the benefits of team building activities so you fully understand why you are taking this on.

• Increase and sustain motivation
• Improved productivity
• Develop problem solving abilities
• Create a cooperative rather than competitive environment

A structured team building program will increase motivation which in turn will increase productivity. Your team members will learn to support each other and become more adept at solving problems and ensuring that small issues don’t prevent the team from achieving their goals.

James is the owner of Fradley Croft Events Team Building Company based in the UK and also is the author of the UK’s most popular Team Building Blog and the Free Guide to Team Building with 15 team building games you can start using today.