What an amazing day your team has had working with African Beat on team building. You’ve created amazing music together and feel like you are all on the same page.
But how do you keep this feeling alive?
Are team building sessions like this sustainable long past the day?
We think so.
Sometimes getting team dynamics is not about having a team building guru come in but about remembering the joy of team work.
In the hurley burley of day-to-day tasks, deadlines and pressures, it is easy to forget we are working with other human beings. The pressure to get a job done can sometimes overshadow the team connection. We forget to rely on each other. Instead, seeing any interruptions or distraction as an intrusion into our space.
Of course, there are some things we need to do as individuals. However, the ultimate success of any project or organisation comes down the sum of its parts – the team.
Next time you are cursing being part of a team and the boss is suggesting a team building exercise, remember these six points of the benefits of being in a high functioning and happy team.
The announcement comes through the internal messaging system – the date for the next team building activity.
Throughout the organisation, there are collective groans and eye rolls because the team knows it will be like Groundhog Day – the same old same old. The keynote speaker talking about teamwork and sharing a story while most struggle to stay awake and engaged.
Or it is a physical activity that gets the fit in the office excited but the ones who are not so athletic, cringe and hope they will be sick that day.
Or the trust fall activity. Yes, your colleague might catch you on the day but there is a big difference between doing something because you are expected to and being accountable.
If you are going to do team building, make sure it is something that everyone can connect over, that brings people together in the spirit of creating something worthwhile and also lifts the spirits.
Body Percussion is traced back to the mines of South Africa, where miners communicated with each other using sounds and rhythms. You can make music even without instruments because your body is an instrument! Your body acts like a drum-kit which means you can create amazing rhythms through clap, snap, stomp and slap and more. So, the main movements that we use at African Beat are:
Employee engagement is vital for business growth. It is the emotional commitment people have to the business, which underpins how much they care about what they do.
Do you have team members that show up to work, listless, disinterested and who only do the bare minimum to get by? You know they are good at what they do but they just are not engaged.
It happens in most workplaces. People start with a workplace excited about the opportunities and dedicated to meeting the organisation’s goal and values.
Somewhere along the line, they unplug, becoming just a cog in the wheel.
As the leader, it is not the boss’s job to make sure the staff are happy; that is up to them, but it is important to keep people engaged. Without employee engagement, without commitment, without motivation, no one gives their best and the workplace becomes a lacklustre environment, devoid of enthusiasm and tangible successes
If you look around and find your people are disconnected, here are five ways to plug them back in for an energy boost and tick your employee engagement box.
