Time Management: The Underappreciated Corporate Team Building Skill

My 2-month old daughter has once again inspired a blog post, as she has been prone to doing lately.

Prior to striking out on my own to pursue my NYC corporate team building company dreams, I was slowly building TrivWorks while still working full-time directing the adult education division at the 92nd Street Y. It was hard work, as you can imagine: long days and nights, with little down time – however, I had a good grip on my time management skills which, partnered with my determination to be my own boss, made the sacrifices necessary to turn my dream into a reality bearable.

When I left 92Y to work for myself, I was giddy with the possibilities: imagine all I would be able to accomplish, I thought, now that I could focus 100% of my attention, resources and, most importantly, time on developing my business! It turns out, however, that this isn’t entirely the case. As mentioned in a previous post, having a newborn presents its own unique challenges to the entrepreneur’s lifestyle, and despite the incredible joy being a new parent brings, finding the right balance between work and home can be tough – there are even moments when I actually find myself having less, not more, time to develop my business than I did when I was working full-time at another job!

Time management – it really all comes down to that, doesn’t it? How does one prioritize, allocate and schedule one’s limited resource of time in order to maximize efficiency & productivity, without negatively impacting quality? It’s a crucial skill to develop both at work and at home; it’s also one which doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves at corporate team building events.

When you think about a “team building activity,” what typically comes to mind as far as skills intended to be promoted and honed? Some of the classic examples include:

1. Teamwork
2. Collaboration
3. Communication
4. Group decision making
5. Conflict resolution
6. Leadership

But what about time management? If anything, it’s thrown in as an ancillary benefit, a bonus skill to practice, of sorts. When I was cutting my teeth in the team building profession by producing corporate scavenger hunts here in NYC, time was an important factor in that teams running around the city had to be at the finishing point by a pre-determined time – however, this was more so that the event could remain on schedule, rather than as a deliberate attempt at encouraging positive time management skills.

Timing in team building trivia events is more important to stay on top of – however, the obsession here with the clock is primarily to keep the event running smoothly and efficiently, to maintain a fair playing environment, and to discourage any would-be cheaters, however unlikely they may be. While time management is indeed a skill that’s built into our trivia team building events, it’s something which we could do a better job at prioritizing for our corporate groups.

At the end of the day, a corporate team building activity will be measured based not only on how much fun and memorable it was, but how well the skills practiced during the event are utilized and incorporated into the daily workplace routine back in the office. Time management is a critical workplace skill, and one which we as team building event professionals should be emphasizing more.