Over the years that I have been consulting around team behavior, I think that there are some common issues that clients share and always come up, both within teams and within companies on a greater scale.

• We operate in Silo’s even though we are part of the same team
• We don’t communicate enough/We don’t share information

One of the natural questions that follows  is “So would you like to increase collaboration?” and the answer is always yes.

For me, part of any solution for the client to this has to involve some sort of experiential activity as we all learn by doing. This is mostly classified of as a team building program on the day/s agenda. This made me think – What is more important in a team building program – Collaboration or Competition?

If you want to improve team harmony and foster greater communication and collaboration, is pitting everyone in a virtual fight where there is only one winner going to improve collaboration and break down a silo mentality? Will this help build towards a goal of everyone working together more harmoniously?Will it develop relationships that will lead to lead to greater communication? Will you just be grumpy because you didn’t win and take this back to work?

On the other hand, competition is fun. The commercial world is about competition. A healthy level of competition may drive better results and most sales teams I have been in are built around this ethos. Maybe your team is getting to comfortable and needs a virtual kick?

There is a wealth of information on the collaboration vs. competition debate. My view is that collaboration, overall is a much more important behaviour. Wether you are in a creativity and innovation team, a sales team,  a Human Resources team or company wide, collaborating with all of the great knowedge in your team or company will surely bring better results than working in isolation.

What ever your view, next time you are thinking of a team building activity for your team, ask the question, “Given our current circumstances, do we need to improve our level of collaboration or do we need to be more competetive?” That will give you some greater idea of what direction you want to go.

Creative Team Building, Team Building, Visual Funk | By: simon

I came across a great article today that spoke about the benefits of creativity for ones health. The article states:

We all know sport and physical activity are important for good health but what about art and music?

According to experts, being involved in creative activity can have a positive effect on health. This is increasingly being recognised with many new projects now using art to deliver health messages and to promote wellbeing.

Research has shown that being involved in communal art activities could even increase life expectancy, according to WA public health physician Marisa Gilles.

“The arts don’t just improve mental health but also physical health – to the extent that you live longer,” Dr Gilles said.

“The arts improve mental health and that in turn affects physical health directly – as we know, the two are interconnected.”

Dr Gilles said work in UK hospitals on “healing from within” had shown that art classes, ballet performances and music could speed up recovery times in patients.

Read the rest of the article here

I agree wholeheartedly. When you do something creative, it feels good. It’s as if your soul has been replenished and you have restored some of your natural internal balance. We are being the way we should be. The big thing that stops you doing something creative is the internal heckler who gives you a hard time about what you may look like. The bloody heckler, he/she makes life hard! Once you get past that and wallow in the joy of being creative without the heckler giving you a hard time, it feels great.

That is why Visual Funk delivers creative team building programs where we get our clients doing creative activities together. We know that people are designed to be creative but making that step to silence the heckler can be tough. We help people to silence the heckler and great things happen. Whenever we finish, say a creative art program, I always get everyone to reflect on what a nice vibe there is in the room. You can really feel it, as can all of the participants who take part. It’s as if some great energy has been unlocked and everyone is on a high. It’s a great way to leave everyone at the end of a program.

Participating in a creative activity opens up great new lines of communication between those taking part and also allows for some great self expression. We were designed to express ourselves creatively. I always point out that man was drawing, singing and dancing along time before they were creating spreadsheets. Self expression is a natural part of the great creativity we all have.

So next time you are thinking about your health makes sure you ask the following questions:

• Am I eating well?
• Am I exercising and keeping fit?
• Am I drinking enough water?
• Am I doing anything creative in my life?

For me, for real, true health and a happy soul, exercising your creativity needs to be high on your keeping healthy list – for an individual or a corporate team.

If you want to know more about what Visual Funk does, click here

Art, Creative Team Building, Team Building, Visual Funk | By: simon

I read an interesting article this week by Deborah Sweeney on team building and in particular, three team building exercises she thinks that you should avoid. There will be plenty of people that will disagree with her and many, many more that will agree whole heartedly.

Reading her article, there a couple of key things to remember though whenever thinking team building:

• Just because it has team building attached to it doesn’t mean it will go anywhere near developing your team
• Even the best activity can be botched by a poor facilitator or poor organisation
• Everyone has a terrible memory about a team experience for any number of reasons
• People need to feel in a good space throughout the program. Make sure you are clear how this is managed when you are thinking of something for your team. If everyone is in a good space and feeling comfortable, there will be a great energy in the group. We all love a great vibe!

Deborah says;

“There may be no I in team but that doesn’t mean that “I” will still want to participate.

A rather apathetic opener from yours truly, but it does sum up a poorly done team-building experience. Whether you’ve just joined a new team at a corporation, are celebrating your first anniversary within a small start-up, or just polished off your 20th year as a self-made entrepreneur, you’ve undoubtedly had to participate in (or coordinate) team-building exercises for your group.

We’ve all been to a few in our lives. Maybe you were on a week-long retreat in the woods with your the big guns from your department. You might have all sat in a circle and added adjectives to your name and went around the circle repeating the names of others while adding more adjectives to make the game more complicated. You might have all gone rock-climbing together on an indoor course. Or written notes of appreciation to one another after talking about your best and worst jobs ever.

There are good ways to bond with people of all ages within your workplace and then there aren’t. Despite the best intentions of those planning the events, mistakes can still be made. Team building exercises according to LinkedIn are designed with two factors in mind: building up company morale and strengthening a team of professionals. Even the best laid plans with ideas that you’re sure will get everyone revved up and ready to go can fizzle fast.

Why did these activities lose their luster  before they even began? Contributing factors could be anything from the time in the day that the activity was scheduled, over scheduling every single moment of the day (especially on a retreat), holding the event outside of work hours, or just picking activities for the team that may not be what the group really wants to do. Never hesitate to get the opinion of your staff before you decide to recycle old tried but 50/50 at best true group work together.

When it comes to these three activities, I can already feel people teaming up to avoid engaging in them.

The Trust Game

A timeless classic that involves two people. One stands still and puts their hands out in front of them. The other stands in front of this person and closes their eyes, leans backwards, and falls into their waiting arms. At least you hope they do and that nobody pulls their arms back at the last moment. Before you fall, usually the person with their arms out asks, “Do you trust me?” to which one replies, “I trust you.” and lands into the cocoon of safety.

The goal of being caught is to relieve the momentary feelings of doubt and fear in exchange for ones of safety and security. But today, the trust game is a harder one to play. Odd employee pairings make it harder to catch someone- a 6’1? staff member with one that is 4’11? is awkward to say least.”

To read the rest of the article click here

Creative Team Building, Team Building, Visual Funk | By: simon

We have some interesting conversations every week with people who are ringing up looking for a team building program.

The abbreviated conversation generally goes something like this:

• Hi, we are looking for some team building? Can you send us a quote?
• Great. I am keen to know a lot more before we do that. Are there any specific outcomes you are looking for?
• No, just team building and that type of thing.
• Team building means different things to most people, what’s your sense around what the team wants?
• You know, just team building stuff.  Can you send a quote?

At that stage, I know that we will most likely never work with that person. If they don’t know what they are looking for, chances are very low that we will be able to give it to them.

Whatever you are considering, there are some real simple things to consider:

Spending a day together out of the office does not mean you are necessarily building teamwork. In fact, a team building experience that is unenjoyable and poorly delivered can be a real destructive influence on teamwork. I have been in a number of these and everyone I think we have ever worked with has a really bad memory of an office team building day.

I prefer to reverse team building and refer to it as ‘building a team‘. How is the day going to build a more successful team? A highly motivated team? A happy, productive or more creative team?

When planning a team development/team building day there are some important things to consider.

• What is the current teamwork situation in the workplace with your team?
• What would you like the teamwork situation to be?
• Do you want the team development day to be all fun, a full-blown development program or a great mix of fun and learning?
• How will you measure the success of the team building day?
• How will you keep the magic of the team development day alive and relevant in the office?
• Is there anything that you defenitely don’t want to see?
• What would a terrible team building program look like?
• Are you going to make the decision purely based on price?

Once you have some clarity around these questions, you can start to get a better idea of what success would look like.

Looking to let the team blow off steam – great!
Needing to develop your team’s creativity – fantastic!
Develop team unity and focus at the start of a project? – Superb!
Wanting to get to know everyone better for some team bonding? Awesome!

Your team building goals can always be achieved as long as you know what they are. And it makes for some better phone calls….

Team Building | By: simon

I read a great short post from Seth Godin today. It said:

Wasting time is not a waste

Art, creativity, Innovation, Visualfunk | By: simon

I am always getting asked by clients who are companies that are leading the way in innovation, how they do it etc. So when I saw this list, I thought it worth sharing. The list is based upon the innovation premium which is:

 ”a measure of how much investors have bid up the stock price of a company above the value of its existing business based on expectations of future innovative results (new products, services and markets) . Members of the list must have $10 billion in market capitalization, spend at least 1% of their asset base on R&D and have seven years of public data”

Sounds pretty heavy and I am sure it cuts out many smaller companies but innovation and creativity in the corporate world must be measured on results.

The top five on the list are:

1. Salesforce.com
2. Amazon.com
3. Intuitive Surgical
4. Tencent Holdings
5. Apple

It makes me really glad we use Salesforce! Check out the rest of the list here

Innovation | By: simon

We always preach that to be creative you have to live creatively or put yourself out there and do creative things. The most creative Franchi brothers who not only are wonderful chefs but world renowwned DJ’s and musicians, actors and performers and are people who make the effort to live creatively, day in and day out. They are also amazing facilitators with Visualfunk., delivering our fantastic cooking team building programs. This week, there fantastic creative efforts saw them  in the Sun Herald where they were creating great food at the with the launch of SBS’s Feast Magazine.  Living creatively – we love it. Click on the image below for some more details

Team Building, Visualfunk | By: simon

I am a huge fan of Salvador Dali. Some of my favourite travel memories are visiting both the Salvador Dali Museum in Figures and then his house in Cadaquez. His taste for mixing absurd abstraction with haunting realism is amazing. One of my favourite quotes of his is “each morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure – that of being Salvador Dali”. Creatively, he was open to anything.

When I saw this article by the company Gijima, I couldn’t help but be interested. There is so much that the arts can offer the corporate world in both thinking and acting creatively. This is why our corporate team building programs enbrace the arts.

The article states “the innovative thought process draws many comparisons in surrealism. Both challenge the norm, take an alternative view and use the element of surprise and unexpected contrasts to the point of being absurd, dissociative, confusing and unpredictable and in so doing come up with previously neglected associations.” Read the full article here

At the very least, the moment you engage with anything that challenges/changes/ignites/smashes your usual thought process, creativity and freshness starts to happen.

It doesn’t have to be art: You can walk, read a magazine, go to a cafe – anything!

Art, corporate creativty, creativity, Innovation, Visualfunk | By: simon

I am a huge fan of the show Grand Designs. The presenter takes you into the lives of people who are doing a home renovation on a grand scale. Each house is always amazing and unique. Great ideas flow and come to life. In the process of doing up my own house, it’s even more interesting.

The most recent one I watched was of a couple that was turning an old electricity sub station into a house. They picked it up for a real steal and then the whole family lived in a caravan for 18 months whilst they turned it into a house. At the end of the program the presenter complemented them on their creative drive. Not their creativity alone (which they exhibited in abundance) but their creative drive – their ability to make their creative ideas become a reality.  This struck a real chord for me, as I had never heard the two words paired together but I believe it sums up the notion of creativity really well.

You can have a lot of energy but you maybe don’t do anything creative with it.

You can have loads of great ideas but not the energy/passion/drive to make it happen.

To make creativity happen, you need to have creative drive. Energy and creativity go hand in hand. You can have the best ideas in the work but unless you pull your finger out and get off your ass, they aren’t going to happen. When you continue to drive your creativity and make things happen, you get into a great creative space. You get your creative mojo going. The great ideas continue to flow and you continue to drive them until they become the actual reality that you envisaged in the first place and on it goes. This doesn’t mean never taking a break, rest is good but you then need to start driving again if you want your ideas to become a reality.

So, don’t be the person/team/companyu who had a great idea but didn’t have the creative drive to make it happen. You’re always better to drive than to not. At the very least you are going somewhere and the journey is usually a lot of fun…

Creative Team Building | By: simon

I love anything that Sir Ken Robinson says. He is an enlightened guy. His Tedex talks are the most popular ever (from what I know…). He gets creativity. What do I mean by gets creativity?

You can read about it in his an article about him and his new book here . Its a great read. One of the points that I loved the most was:

“Someone asked me recently what single piece of advice would you give people who wanted to become more creative. I said it would be to have confidence that you can be because often people lack confidence because they can’t do something and therefore assume that they’re incapable of it. There’s a very big difference between not having learned to do something and being incapable. There’s a point where most people can’t drive cars, but they don’t think that they’re incapable of it. I can’t play the piano but I’m not incapable of it; I just haven’t done it”

Bingo, he gets it. I read so many articles, books and strategic articles on creativity and what thinking tools to use to be more creative but as Sir Ken says it’s a confidence thing. I see this all of the time when ever we run a creative team building program. It’s like rabbits in the headlights when you ask someone to pick up a paintbrush or a crayon. I have seen this look of FEAR for years but never seen anyone actually get ill or harm themselves from it! Three hours later, once you have built up everyone’s confidence, had some fun and silenced the inner voice, you have something that looks amazing. In 3 hrs we go from “I am not creative”, to “I can’t beleive what I have created!”

It’s not that you arent creative, it’s that most people dont have the confidence to try something that will help them develop their creativity. The worlds best Salsa Dancers started learing a few simple steps an went from there. You will never look like a professional the first time you try something. That doesnt mean you wont but you have to swallow the inner fear and take the first step.

Mankind was singing, dancing and drawing (all considered creative pursuits) a long time before he was putting together spreadsheet. So get started being created. Don’t say “I am not creative”. Ask “what the HELL is stopping me being creative?” We have all learned to drive if we wanted to haven’t we?

creativity, Innovation, Visualfunk | By: simon