Putting the Spirit Into Team Spirit.

This week saw the annual summer social event take place. A number of the development teams were invited to an informal boat trip chartered as an opportunity for people to spend some time together away from the office.

A common complaint amongst staff is that 'we never do anything entertaining'. The disappointing result to this desire to offer people the chance to enjoy something, was that the turnout was particularly poor. This encouraged me to think more deeply about what is the value of this kind of extra curricular events. Indeed one attendee remarked; to not socialise with your colleagues outside of work means that you are not a team player.

I am not sure I see it is as clear cut as that; some people just simply aren't that gregarious. Does it mean that you can't be a valuable and integral member of a team if you don't want to spend your free time with your work colleagues. In my opinion it is not necessarily a negative factor if people don't wish to participate in extramural activities. It is more a case of missing a positive. If you genuinely get pleasure from spending time with your work colleagues then I would suggest that can only have a positive impact on the effectiveness of the team. So maybe it is as much a symptom of dysfunctional teams rather than the cause of them. However, I would also suggest that success at work is likely to be measured by the quality of your interactions with others. Getting to know people better can only help in this context.

I do believe that the closest teams are forged in adversity. When you are up against things and you all pull together to create a positive outcome. When people can see that everybody is aiming for you same goal and believes in its achievement. I would then hope that once that team cohesion was in place the social connection would follow on quite naturally.

So what would I conclude from this? It is always good to give people the opportunity to interact outside of work as the positives outweigh the negatives. Make things as open and accessible as possible to encourage attendance. But above all remember that it isn't just about the grand gestures. The odd pint down the pub can be just as effective and remember it is 'only work', after all.