Building Bicycles for Team Building

Many companies devote part of their corporate event to a team building exercise. Organizers see this time away from the office as a chance for employees to connect with their peers in a different way, removed from the daily pressures of the workplace. That being said, employees have been there, done that. They’ve participated in countless team building exercises and grown cynical about their effectiveness. The challenge of the event planner is to come up with an exercise that’s different, meaningful, and will leave a lasting impression.

At a Siemens meeting we recently produced in Atlanta, employees participated in a fabulous exercise that involved building bicycles for needy children.

The exercise, developed by Quality Team Building, begins with the team being divided up into small groups. These groups begin with assignments that are designed to set their group apart from the larger team. (This mimics the silo effect that often exists in companies.) As the task progresses, participants realize the necessity of communicating with the other groups in order to successfully complete the project.

The outcomes are amazing. It demonstrates the benefits of collaboration, communication, and creativity, all necessary skills for an organization to be successful. It also teaches a greater lesson, one that goes beyond the workplace: that collaborating, communicating, and working imaginatively cannot only make you successful at work, but also a valued asset to your community. In this exercise, it’s not about getting ahead, it’s not about distinguishing oneself to get a bigger raise or a promotion. In the end, you get to hand deliver a bike that you made to someone who needs it, and the reward is seeing the enormous smile on that child’s face.

This exercise is perfect for any group including mixed group or existing teams. It’s a unique learning opportunity, and best of all, it’s active and fun. Many people  walk away with renewed sense of the benefits of giving back to the community. Also, employees see a tangible result, in this case a shiny new ten-speed, of how successful an organization can be if they truly work together as a team.

Watch bike building in action here.