Team building corporate events

Prior to starting my own trivia company for corporate groups in NYC – first as a side gig, and then eventually taking it full-time – I worked at the 92^nd Street Y, a cultural & community center in Manhattan. I worked at 92Y for a total of six years, where I ran the division in charge of adult education programs (I was eventually responsible for nearly 600 annual programs including enrichment classes & lectures, food & wine tastings, outings, singles events and more).

I’ll be honest, the pay was abysmal – this shouldn’t surprise you, seeing how it’s a nonprofit arts institution. In fact, it’s what led me (forced me, really) to take side jobs as a bar trivia host and scavenger hunt writer/producer in the first place. But 92Y did offer several cool perks, one of which I took complete and full advantage of: a free gym membership.

Each day before work, I would hit the gym – as in, every day for six years. I’d worked out in spurts at other times in my life, but I’d never had a full-sized gym literally inside my office. I’m the kind of guy that likes to really commit myself to things once I’ve decided to do them. In high school and college, I dutifully practiced my saxophone two hours each day; more recently, you might have noticed I’ve not missed a single week of blog posts since I started blogging in 2011. And so, with the dedication of an Olympic athlete, I would dutifully set my alarm each morning for the crazy-early hours, trudge myself out of bed, and brave the elements for the 15-minute walk to work. Once there, I would go through the same routine: drop off stuff in locker room, hike upstairs to the gym floor, and hit either the cardio room or the weights room (I would switch off).

I was ferocious; you have to REALLY motivate yourself to lift ridiculously heavy weights or keep a steady pace for 30 minutes on the elliptical machine, especially in the early morning. I would then shower, eat a hearty breakfast at my desk, and begin the day’s work. This was literally my routine for six full years; I was in the best physical shape of my life, and it showed.

One morning, as I was doing my stretches, a new trainer who worked at the gym came over to introduce herself to me. The first thing she said was, “I’ve seen you here every morning, you’re in really great shape. Tell me, what sport do you play?”

I was caught off-guard, and kind of stammered, “Uhh…I don’t play any sports.”

She tilted her head in a confused way, then said, “Huh. I just assumed you did. Are you a marathoner?”

“A marathoner? No…”

“Actor, model…?”

“Uh, no – and definitely no…”

“I guess you just like to work out, then!”

And you know, I just sat there for a second, processing what had happened. For six years, I’d just assumed that because I had a free gym at my disposal and had already started working out, that I HAD to work out. That it was just something I did, a part of my daily routine. But this exchange was like a jolt to my system. Up until that moment, I had never bothered to ask myself a simple question: why, David? Why are you doing this?

Why was I forcing myself to wake up early, to freeze or melt my way into the gym each morning, to stretch and lift and push and pull and sweat and sometimes even injure myself? Why? What was the point of all of this? Was it really worth all of the time and energy and effort, EVERY SINGLE DAY, simply to…what, look good?

I stopped lifting weights shortly afterwards. I kept up the cardio, but I no longer felt the need to develop and maintain muscles which would never be used anywhere other than a mirror. It was quite literally a weight off my shoulders, and I suddenly felt freer than I had in a long, long time to – well, to just life and work and go about my day, not having to do something just for the sake of doing it.

And this finally brings me to the subject of this blog post. If you’re reading this, then chances are you (or somebody whom you report to) is looking for a team building activity for the office. I’m glad you found me, since this is exactly what TrivWorks does! However, before you hit that “Request a Quote” button, let me ask you the same question the woman at the gym asked me all those years ago: why? Why do you or your superiors want a group bonding event?

Is it because your department or company does one every year, maybe every quarter? Is it because the “Big Boss,” whomever he or she may be, has requested one? Or maybe it’s because other departments, offices or companies are doing them, and that means perhaps you should be, too?

This is my business, and by all means I’m happy to provide you with trivia team building events any day of the week. But maybe, just maybe, your needs, goals and objectives for producing one should be made a bit more clear? After all they’re not cheap: in addition to the vendor’s fee, you may have venue, food/beverage and transportation expense to consider, not to mention the opportunity and lost productivity costs associated with pulling people out of the office early (or for the entire day) in order to participate. Isn’t “we do this every year” just a little bit light on the explanation side, from a balance sheet perspective?

I’d suggest taking a step back, having a good, hard look and asking yourself: why are we doing this? Do we need to do this? If you’ve got specific needs – desire for a morale boost, reward/motivation, integrating new team members, onboarding, department merging, improving communication & trust, or a host of other items – then yes, you can and should schedule a professional team building activity (click here for a list of measurable team building goals). But just to do it for the sake of doing it? I don’t really know the answer to that.

Look, I started up in this line of work because I wanted to create a way for companies to say “thank you” to hard-working employees, and if you are willing to create an event just for the sake of doing it, then I applaud you. But if budgets are tight and needs are unclear, well…maybe it’s time to put down the weights for a bit, at least until you decide which sport you want to play.

For further reading, please visit https://trivworks.com/employee-team-building/