Team Bonding Activities Long Beach CA

This month, after seven years operating primarily in the NYC area, TrivWorks has expanded to the West Coast by opening an office in Southern California (click here for more). I’ve personally made the move with my family to oversee this exciting growth of our brand, and for the first time in my life am living somewhere other than the Northeast.

It’s incredibly different in this new environment, as I’ve discussed at length in previous blog posts. The weather is weird, in that it’s always…well, gorgeous. It hasn’t rained once since we’ve been out here, and in fact we haven’t even had an overcast day. The sun is definitely more intense, you need to wear sunscreen and sunglasses all the time.

Then there’s other things, too – like having space. Suddenly, there’s space at home, your office, space to park your car, personal space. You may read this and raise your eyebrows, but after fifteen years living in the Big Apple, it’s a big adjustment to suddenly not feel cramped all the time (here’s another article I wrote recently about the space issue, and how it affects peoples’ moods).

Some of the changes, however, aren’t so great. As I write this, it’s just after 5am local time. Why in God’s name am I up so early, you wonder? Trust me, I’m wondering the same thing. Our two young children, ages 3 & 4, are having some difficulty adjusting to all of this new stuff; new environments, new people, new routines. As such, they’re not sleeping through the night as smoothly as they should (not that they ever have – parents, you know what I’m talking about). Just about every night this week, I’ve been awakened at some ungodly hour – sometimes multiple times – because someone’s crying, had a nightmare, is thirsty, or is simply disoriented.

Sometimes I can fall back asleep; other times, like this morning, I can’t. Hence, my before-dawn writing to crank out new blog posts. But I can use this opportunity to explore some issues related to team bonding, which I can definitely see some clear parallels to here.

How does change impact the team’s performance? Granted, your team is likely not going to be relocating across the country with two young kids. But there are plenty of other outside forces that can impact the dynamics of the group, which in turn can affect performance and productivity. Some examples include:

• Office relocation, reconfiguration or remodeling
• Work space shakeups
• Switching systems or processes
• Mergers with other teams, departments or companies
• Employee hiring, firing, transitioning and retrenchment
• Shift in focus, mission or vision
• Changes in leadership
• Fluctuations in the economy and markets
• New competitive entities to be reckoned with
• Changes in political, social or cultural forces

How well your team adjusts to these new realities has a direct impact on everything: collaboration, communication, team cohesion, client experience and, ultimately, the bottom line. The question, then, is: how can leaders of teams ensure that both they and their colleagues are acclimatizing in a healthy, productive way?

Entire areas of study have been devoted to this subject, and people with far greater experience and expertise in change management can certainly offer more insight than I can in one blog post. However, drawing on my background as someone who produces group bonding ideas for the office, I can make the following suggestions:

• Identify New Challenges Early – Just as high altitude and jet lag can affect people differently, alterations to the norm in the workplace can have varying impact on different individuals. It’s not always readily apparent; it took my wife and I a solid week to realize that our kids weren’t acting themselves during their waking hours because their toys were still on a moving truck, and not in the new house. Keep an eye on things after the change is made, and try to discern what suddenly is not working as well as it has used to.

• Maintain an “Open Door” Policy – What might make sense to you and other senior leaders may not have been effectively communicated down the ranks to others. You can help alleviate any manifest anxiety among the troops simply by letting them know you are available to address their concerns (my first job out of college, the company moved to a smaller office building. The space was cramped, the commute worse, and lots of people were very unhappy. Senior management didn’t provide any recourse for people to express their frustrations, other than take it up with their direct supervisors – who were, of course, in the exact same boat. I left shortly afterwards, as did many others).

• Know You Can’t Please Everyone – If there’s one constant in change, to coin a phrase, it’s that SOMEBODY isn’t going to be happy. No matter how well-intended or necessary for the health of the business, I guarantee that at least one person (and likely more than one) will have serious problems with said change. Don’t think it’s just the long-term employees used to their routines, either – that example I used above? I had been with the company less than a year before the move. Another job I had a few years later, the company changed floors in the same building after I’d been there for about six months. The space was BIGGER, with better light – even so, some new hires they brought in to fill all of the new cubicles were horrible, and morale sank.

• Team Building Activities Can Help – Here’s one thing I DO know: when properly employed, a well-timed, appropriately-tailored event for everyone who has been affected by the change can absolutely make modifications in the norm easier to bear. After a decade of doing this, I’ve seen firsthand many times how a fun shared experience can help people loosen up, and not take things so seriously. This “pause” is essential for colleagues at all levels to take a step back, and realize that we’re all human. Suddenly, everyone realizes that the bosses aren’t hatching some devious plan to make the rest of the company miserable, and the rank-and-file gain some insight into what it’s like for the leaders who must make decisions about change. At the same time, those in charge can get a better feel for what it’s like “on the ground.”

For more on company team events in Long Beach, California and elsewhere, visit this page.