A recent article posted on Facilitutor peaked my interest and brought up a lot of mixed feelings. The Article titled, The backlash against teambuilding, holds a lot of learning for us an industry. In the article, the reporter describes many of the common practices in our industry that are being sold as teambuilding and the reaction that the programming is receiving for businesses.
First, I respect those businesses that have been operating in this industry a lot longer than I have. I have provided many programs that are designed to be FUNN (for more info on what this means check out Karl Rohnke) and have not been focused on learning. I work for Campus Recreation and highly value recreation based experiences.
In my position within a learning institution teaching Experiential Education and Challenge Course Facilitation I have to define our industry for my students. Articles like this one force me to rethink what are industry is and what responsibilities we have to our clients. Is a challenge course a learning experience? What is the difference between a challenge course and a ropes course? What is implied when you sell your program with a word like teambuilding?
I don’t have answers to these questions. I don’t know that the guilty parties that are implicated by this article even care about how I teach about this industry. If I were them, I probably would not. But the question that arises for me is should others in similar situations to myself be concerned about them. Are we losing value and piece of validity when an article like this is published? Do we have a responsibility to ensure authenticity in our industry?
The difficulty that I see is that it is hard to not get sucked into programming like paintball to the “death” and drunken karaoke. I work at a university in a state that is in a huge financial crisis. Money is much needed and necessary right now more than ever. If I was able to let go of a few of my beliefs about this industry and make quick and easy money, my job status would be more solid along with my salary. Frankly, businesses sometimes want programming that is simply focused on fun and recreation. Who am I to be able to tell a high executive what his or her business needs and does not need?
But do I devalue myself if I take the money and lead this type programming? Do I devalue the industry? These are the questions that I believe we need to ask when we read an article like this. I don’t have the answer.
I do know what I believe. I believe that our industry should be driven by learning. This learning needs to come through authentic experiences that at times make us frustrated and upset with each other. Learning needs to have praxis, action and reflection. I hope that the programming that I provide will allow participants to see an honest reflection of themselves. I hope that I am able to provide a challenge that presents opportunities to grow and develop in a positive direction.
Please let me know your thoughts. Please disagree and prove me wrong. Most importantly, please help me prove this article wrong.
Nicholas Hagemann
April 2, 2009 at 11:36 pm |
Nic,
I get frustrated by these articles as well and often feel compelled to react strongly, but for different reasons. Like many of the other contractors for companies that offer activities like drunken cruises and karaoke, I come from an educational background and see myself as a facilitator and educator first. And yet, the high-profile company names and hefty paychecks suck me into this type of programming from time to time. So where does that disconnect come from?
This is something I have struggled with for some time now, and I have come up with several reasons for myself. These are not truisms, but simply personal justifications.
First and foremost, not all business people who create these types of teambuilding companies have an experiential education background. I would like to think that, in this type of programming, I can bring some of my knowledge to a company. If I can suggest some debrief questions for an activity or offer up a Challenge by Choice philosophy for the day, then I can at least make the experience a bit more positive for the participants, and hopefully some of my knowledge can rub off on those delivering these types of programs.
Additionally, taking these occasional higher-paying days allows me to facilitate full-time, rather than having to sacrifice my passion and pursue a more “traditional” career. That is not to say that it is impossible to be in this field full-time otherwise, but having the cushion of these types of programs certainly helps in the slower winter season, especially for someone who is younger and may not have the same shot at the full-time Challenge Course Manager jobs.
And there are many great corporations and small businesses out there that recognize the value in content-based programs. Personality assessment tools, leadership models, and other business consulting strategies are becoming increasingly popular, and there are some great companies out there that offer these types of training and development programs. I am far more interested in facilitating these types of activities than, say, paintball, but if I can get the corporate face time and learn to speak the language by running these types of programs, that is not an opportunity that I necessarily want to pass up.
And finally, I know of several corporate facilitators who own their own companies and have used some of their profits to help support or create non-profit organizations that allow underpriviledged populations to participate in experiential programming. I think that this is a fantastic way to allow the experience of facilitation to come full-circle and help others, and hope and intend to make this a part of my career someday.
I realize that I may have deviated a bit from the point of the article – a three-day leadership retreat that involves a DiSC behavioral assessment and a challenge course experience is NOT the same as an afternoon on a Velcro Wall. But both have their purpose and their value, even if one is meant to develop teams and the other is a great outlet for the pent-up energy that comes with sitting at a desk all day.
My main concern is in branding: if one starts to call the Velcro Wall teambuilding, rather than recreation, how does that redefine our industry? If a company offers both services and markets them at equal value, does the more expensive, learning-intensive program get overlooked or devalued? As practitioners and experiential educators, it is important that we help define and draw these lines in the field, regardless of what type of programs we choose to run.
April 8, 2009 at 5:55 pm |
After adding this post, I had another thought that I wanted to add. This article focuses heavily on “goofy” team building exercises like whitewater rafting, Infaltable Olympics and paintball. While these types of activities certainly have the potential to go awry, it’s important to remember that there is serious distinction between a bad activity and a poorly facilitated activity.
Something like paintball can turn into a violent, gun-toting activity where cliques gather and are reinforced. Or, one can also preassign teams to dissipate the cliques and assign a collective task, where one person on the team has to be protected by the other team members, thereby creating a single common goal that requires a certain degree of planning and strategizing. On the flip side, a low ropes element like the Spider’s Web, specifically designed to foster group collaboration and communication, can be framed as a timed, competitive event and lose its learning opportunities.
I’m not saying that all team development solutions can be found in Paintball and Inflatable Olympics, but sometimes framing a learning experience in an activity that is fun and/or familiar to the client can be valuable. I hope to see a continued creative effort to turn these games into teachable moments.
April 15, 2009 at 3:43 pm |
Very interesting comments. I believe that there is a role for some of these ‘team building’ activities and would conclude from experience that it often does very little for the businesses in the end. Things get missed and the event itself can mask the overall purpose of the session.
Clearly the ‘why?’ of the activity needs to be established and a ‘what did we learn?’ plus ‘what are our new commitments?’ sessions would be great, but so often these are overlooked. I strongly believe in self assessments, 360 tools etc. in order to raise self awareness AND to share these outputs with other team members for joint / team awareness, and then we MUST answer the ’so what?’ question.
It’s also a leadership responsibility to know and declare ‘this is what we are going to do’ and ‘this is why it is important.’ Tasking the team(s) to work together more effectively through self discovery, within a framework set by the leader is very powerful.
August 11, 2009 at 9:24 pm |
I was unable to access the Miami Herald article. However, I completely agree with your response. At a time when the economy is keeping groups away from my challenge course, it is so tempting to give into the “recreation” marketing and highlight the fun over the learning.
It helped that early in the formation of my program, I set forth 3 strategic intents and firmly established that what we do and how we market MUST clearly fall within the boundaries of those intents.
As I have said for years, ANYONE can build a challenge course, but it is the quality of the program that separates a challenge course from a day at Six Flags.