Teams That Thrive

Wise Managers' Choice for Team Building in the Philippines

Jef Menguin

10x Your Teams

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Many managers have the mistaken belief that team building means a yearly offsite of playing game packages. It is not all their fault. Many team-building providers sold the idea that play works.

Wrong. You have been short-changed.

Having fun is great. Playing like kids once again brings happy memories. Playing makes us learn more about people at work.

But purchasing team building packages only makes you do same-same. It is an easy thing to do for lazy managers. There is no mindset of growth. There is no behavior change. There is no goal. They are like headless chickens told to move as fast as they can until they find their heads and breathe again.

The fault is not in the games. In the hands of professionals who care for your growth, games can be fun, intensive, result-oriented, and engaging.

In truth, whatever you do with your teams must be done to help them GROW. For without growth, you are not building. Without growth, you are disintegrating. Without growth, you are dying.

Grow your teams. Make your team play bigger without the bruises.

This job belongs to you, the leader of the team. You don’t allow any team building provider to offer a mindless and aimless activity for them. Why? Because whatever your team members experience must advance your team and business goals. Team building doesn’t have to be painful.

You can grow your team You can encourage, enable, and engage champions each day.

You can put into action 10x principles that really work. This means that you will build a strong and trusting relationship with customers. That you will inspire and show your sales team how to bring in the money they have not imagined before. This means that you make your people champions in what they do.

Show your managers and the whole team how to grow using 10x principles and practices.

When you need my help I can do virtual workshops with you. I may speak for 60 to 90 minutes.

Care for People

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You can build a high impact team if you care enough for them. As a team leader, your success is measured by the success of your team.

Many managers are task-oriented. They believe that the only way for the team to succeed is to get everyone moving.

Get things done. That’s their mission. This is easy if you are working on things that you can do by yourself. But leading a team is not like making machines work.

Teams are people. People have different values and aspirations. They’ll assert who they are. They will comply with your orders when not doing so will risk their jobs. But only to some extent.

A compliant team will find it difficult to become a high performing team. That’s because they play safe. That’s because they are not committed.

People give their commitment to those who care for them. Remember that people don’t care what you know until they know that you care. They understand that whatever you want them to do will benefit them. This is why they are engaged. This is why they go beyond job descriptions. This is why to give extraordinary efforts.

I have been sharing these to team leaders and any team building facilitator must keep this in mind. Commitment begins with caring. So it is to your best interest to show people that you care.

Jef Menguin

P.S. When you want to have questions about building great teams, send an email to inspire@jefmenguin.com. Use the subject: 10x Teams Questions

Team Building Provider in Philippines

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Are you looking for team building providers in the Philippines? I can help you build your team but only if you desire to experience result-oriented team building programs.

It is easy to make people play games. But it takes expertise to select or create collaborative and positive games for your organization.

Trust fall, spider webs, or paint ball games are things of the past. Prudent business managers know that none of this can help teams improve performance back on the job.

You can use team play to engage team members and encourage them to find solutions to existing team problems.

Expert team facilitators are not just team building providers. In fact, I find the term “team building provider” inappropriate but I use the term here because lots of people are using it in search.

I don’t provide team building. What must be done really is for facilitators to co-design experiences with you.

Why?

Because team building isn’t a product. Team building is a process of equipping your team so it achieves its goals. It is you who build your team, not me.

Anyhow.

You may explore the result-oriented team building programs below.

My team of expert facilitators conduct team building in major cities in the Philippines. Our office is in Alabang, Muntinlupa City.

When you need professional team building facilitators in Mindanao, you may contact Ms Janice through 7788999. She can represent me when you need team building facilitators, tailor-fit leadership courses and public seminars.

Jef Menguin

Facilitators in Mindanao

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Are you looking for team building facilitators in Mindanao? I am glad to announce that starting March this year, I will be accepting more team building facilitation partnership in Mindanao. This is because we are now going to hold public seminars and in-house training programs in Koronadal City and Davao City.

This is a great opportunity for us to work together.

When you are looking for real team building, you can start contacting us now.

Facilitators in Laguna

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Team building facilitators of Business Innovation have a wealth experiences in helping you build your team more effectively. Our facilitators are trained and handpicked by Business Innovation.

Our team building facilitators in Laguna are known for their creative and unique team building programs. They are also in high demand as team buiding speakers and workplace learning designers for leadership and team development.

Our team building facilitators in Laguna may help you design and deliver excellent team building workshops. You don’t have to look far and wide so you’ll get the services of those who have the expertise and experiences to provide you your desired results.

Contact us

Facilitators in Metro Manila

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We have professional team building facilitators in Manila who serve companies in Metro Manila and nearby provinces.  These facilitators have undergone training in team building facilitation and learning experience design.  We provide indoor and outdoor activities. We use highly collaborate games and focused debrief sessions.

You may also consult us for team development programs and executive retreats. 

Our trained team building facilitators are passionate about what they do. They have the ability to inspire, engage, and foster authentic and positive connections among your team members.

You may use the form below to contact us.

Contact Us

Team Building for Executives

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Team building for executives is a three-session virtual workshop for leaders. We can hold one session each week for 90 to 120 minutes. Your corporate first team need all the help they need.

Teams fail to achieve the highest potentials when leaders do not know how to work with other leaders.

Most executives are members of several teams that are made of peers who have different functions in the organizations.

They belong to senior management teams, commercial teams, marketing teams, research teams, product teams, project teams, or ad hoc teams formed around specific and immediate initiatives.

Cross-functional teams are typically charged with developing and driving the implementation of the organization’s strategic directions.

Solve Big Problems

Executive teams are tasked with solving big problems for the organizations.

Yet, many executives do not practice collaborative communication, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.

Either they do not know, or their environment does not encourage them to practice collaboration.

Team leaders are either your best or worst team players. They are also your best and worst models for everyone in the organization.

Many executives are trained as individuals to win against all odds. Sometimes, they see other members as hindrances to their goals.

This is why some executives compete against each other.

They compete with each other instead of helping your organization compete with your competitors.

This attitude forces them to give more importance to competition than cooperation, to be on top of the organization, rather than to lift up your organization.

They model what you hate the most.

Ineffective team members cannot be effective leaders.

Executives can only preach what they practice. They cannot give what they do not have.

If they do not know how to synergize efforts with their peers, the best that they can do with the teams they lead is to mouth words like teamwork, unity, cooperation, service, and collaboration.

You know when they are doing it wrong: they complain much about their members. They do not mentor employees. They do not motivate. They do not empower.

You can’t allow these problems to continue.

We expect that leaders know how to work together. They would not be in their leadership positions if they were not high performing individuals. Besides, every leader must have mastered the soft skills necessary to become team leaders.

Well, the soft stuff can be harder than you think.

Many cross-functional peer-to-peer teams find problem-solving and decision making naturally difficult.

For example, while the Vice President of Engineering is typically well equipped to provide clear direction and produce compelling and analytically sound decisions, his or her skills are usually functionally bound and mostly authority-based.

When these persuasive and knowledgeable functional advocates come together to shape or govern the strategic direction of their companies, they find their collaborative skills inadequate.

They must collaborate.

The collaborative leadership skills required in the peer-to-peer environment are often inconsistent with functional leadership.

We must recognize that in many organizations, the environment encourages competition, not cooperation and interdependence, among departments.

Leaders measure his success based on the rank of his or her department in the accomplishment of key result areas. They hoard information. They give false information so as not to give other departments the opportunity to outrank them.

This attitude is not everywhere but it has its cousins and sisters that stunt corporate growth.

Develop team leadership.

The usual culprit, of course, is that organizations do not have a rational team leadership development program outside of their annual company outing.

They think that team building is not an opportunity to improve work, but to not think of work.

We believe that every team building is an opportunity to clarify and cement leadership. Of course, very few organization really think that executive team building is necessary.

Executive team leadership is your most important team-building intervention.

Contact us.

Communication for Virtual Teams

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This virtual workshop will help your team strengthen team communication and improve work processes.

Communication affects the team’s performance, morale, and work enjoyment levels.

Effective communication improves team cohesion. Members of cohesive teams are cooperative and effective in achieving their goals.

Often circumstances change over time, but an organization’s work processes do not keep pace. The challenges teams are now facing because of the Covid-19 pandemic is unexpected.

The virtual workshops will provide members of your team opportunities to explore how they might improve communication processes.

Purposes

  • Strengthen team communication
  • Improve work processes.

Benefits

  • Build more cohesive teams.
  • Improve team performance.
  • Encourage commitments to a new course of action

There are four virtual workshops. Each workshop runs for about two hours. We can hold a workshop once a week.

Finding Our Connections

  • Get to know others and find similarities and develop connections of strengths
  • Create a visual representation of known and unknown connections

Strengthen Communication

  • Examine how the team members communicate with each other.
  • Pick what communication patterns work.
  • Provide ways to improve communication

Valuing Feedback

  • Explore existing feedback patterns
  • Practice giving feedback
  • Agree on the feedback mechanism

 Team Commitments

  • Agree on new team behaviors
  •  Declare individual commitments
  •  Promote team commitments

I provide handouts, worksheets, and handouts. 

Five Star Teamwork

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Tough teams with five-star teamwork thrive. Team-based organizations have recognized the multiplier effects of high impact teams.

Organizations create various kinds of teams. They have service teams, management teams, task forces, quality-assurance teams, self-directed work teams, product-development teams, project management teams, et cetera.

Organizations harness the power of teams.

There are ugly teams, good teams, effective teams, and great teams.

What separates these teams from each other is teamwork.

Duration

Your team will work on the five commitments of five-star teams. We will devote about two hours for each commitment once a week for five consecutive weeks.

Doing so allows team members to digest each session. The session is interactive. We send to participants worksheets and resources materials before the conduct of each virtual workshop

Five Virtual Workshops

Commitment to Each Other

How do the members of that team behave? How do they interact with each other? What kinds of things do they say? What do they believe?

We Filipinos value malasakit. We believe that great teams have members who care for each other. That we are not on this alone.

We seldom get into this kind of team. But we know that commitment to each other transform a good team into a better team, a better team into a great team.

Commitment to the Mission

We have an inherent need for purpose, for meaning, and for direction. Team members get things done when they know that tasks they need to accomplish serve a meaningful purpose.

To become successful, we need targets to shoot at, roadmaps to follow, guidelines to keep on track, and a vision to realize.

Five-star teams have mission-oriented members.

They are clear about their goals, they fully trust that other members are accountable to their results, and they align their individual actions to the achievement of their mission.

For members of great teams, the mission is more than something merely to abide by, it’s the embodiment of their personal values – it’s something to believe in … and something to live by.

Commitment to the Customer

You are in business because you provide solve the problems of your customers. You provide high-quality products and services.

Creating remarkable customer experiences requires a team effort.

Wow! is not just a mantra for great teams. 

Wow! is a lifestyle.

This is why for great teams, delighting customers is everything. They live it. They breathe wow! They are grateful for the opportunity to serve customers.

Commitment to Turn Conflict into Collaboration

Employees put in a high-pressure environment require constant interactions. Conflict comes with pressure.

Employees are human. They are emotional by nature. They get cranky. They have ideas and personalities that clash with each other.

Conflict is inevitable. Great teams know this.

In fact, great teams experience more conflict than any other team. 

Because the higher “the bar” – and more intense the zeal – the greater the potential for friction.

Passionate, action-oriented people are more likely to step on proverbial toes. As a result, team members experience their share of tension.

Ironically, however, the same combination of passion and commitment that produces occasional spats is also what provides the motivation to address issues quickly and collaboratively.

Commitment to Drive Results

Most jobs have some repetitive and mundane aspects – for individuals and for the teams they comprise.

Missions don’t change all that often. What we do is what we do. We did it yesterday, we do it today, and we’ll do it tomorrow.

Sure, we try to make improvements … we strive to do our jobs better and faster, but the nature of our work tends to remain the same.

For average teams, that can pose a significant motivation challenge over time. Repetitive tasks can be boring – if you allow them to be.

But great teams rarely make such allowances. 

Members have growth mindsets. For them, routine work is not a problem – it’s their mission … their opportunity to shine.

What is important to them is to drive results.

Purpose-Driven Teams

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Purpose-driven teams thrive. Members commit to their whys. They know how small things contribute to the big picture.

Purpose-driven teams do not just happen. You have to give birth to them.

This virtual workshop will help managers build your purpose-driven teams.

I have worked with many organizations where everyone thought everyone was clear about the purpose of the team. It is seldom you get two team members with the same understanding.

Method

There are six sessions. We can deliver one session each week for a two-hour virtual workshop. In between workshops, participants will have opportunities to work on what they’ll be learning.

Learning Opportunities

There are six topics. You can choose to pick the topics you want for your team. We can work on the topics you want to include so you get a purpose-driven team.

Clarify Team Purpose

  • Publish individual understanding of team purpose
  • Discuss the importance of similar/different understanding of team purpose to a team function.
  • Clarify and align understanding.

Dream Big

  • Explain ambitions for the team
  • Create goals by which the team hold itself accountable

Collaborate to Win

  • Keep eyes on the ball
  • Adjust implementation of a plan to achieve goals
  • Collaborate with others to win

Think Out-of-the-Box

  • Identify “wicked” challenges
  • Brainstorm solutions to team problems
  • Solve team problems together

Improve Performance

  • Listen to others.
  • Find creative solutions together.
  • Promote continuous improvement

Commit to the Team

  • Contribute to team success.
  • Declare Commitment

I provide handouts, worksheets, and handouts. I send these materials days before the conduct of each session.

The Virtual Coach
Jef Menguin is the chief facilitator of Teams that Thrive, the team building group of BITD. He has been conducting team-building programs since 2007.

Apprenticeship Program for Team Facilitators

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Professionals who are interested to learn how to become a team building facilitator — and earn while learning – may grab this opportunity.

Jef Menguin is opening the Team Facilitator Apprenticeship Program. Corporate trainers, HR professionals, speakers, teachers and any professional passionate about building people may apply.

To learn more, go to this page.

Focus on Results

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As a team leader, your first assignment is to get your team to have an honest look at itself.

Help your team make accurate assessments of its actions and structure. Understand that your team is a perfect fit for its current structure and performance of its members.

People preoccupied about their daily businesses become blind to what they’re doing. They fail to correct themselves. They ignore the great potentialities before them.

As a team leader, you must also be able to discover the assets of your team. You make the most of your complementary strengths. Express how what you believe is best for each of your members. And when necessary sell it to them.

Ignorance makes people indifferent. Awareness is the beginning of personal accountability. Encourage your people to acknowledge what they are doing. Help them see who they are. They’ll look for options.

They make things happen.

Jef Menguin

P.S. You can come up with team-building programs that support your business objectives. Competency-based programs are powerful and many managers fail to experience them.

Why Do Team Building

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Team building is not an event, a collection of games, or an intellectual concept.

Team building initiatives fail when organizers focus on rituals but ignore reasons, when they are obsessed with activities and ignore applications, when they think of games and forget goals.

You do not build the team the same way.

You can do that with machines, but not with people.

Those who use cookie-cutter approaches to team building do not understand the purposes of team building.

Individual Development

The first purpose is individual development.

When professionals apply for jobs, they look forward to the opportunities to shine, to be on top, to be above others. They have their dreams and aspirations long before they join teams. They hold values that are likely different from each other.

Team building initiatives must speed up individual and professional growth.

Many team-building programs emphasize that there is no “I” in teamwork. That is very wrong.

Team building is not defined by how a word is spelled. Individuals should not disappear in a team. In five star teams, team members become stars.

Give attention to their career growth.

Provide members with coaches and mentors.

Help them achieve their personal dreams.

Allow achievers to start their own teams rather than keeping them to a team where there is no space for them to grow.

Building Relationship

The second purpose is relationship building.

Experiences have shown that grouping together high performing individuals do not make high performing teams. Oftentimes, the product is less than the sum of its parts.

High performing individuals do not perform well when they work with people they do not trust and respect.

They do not share knowledge and information with others who are threats to their success.

They do not give their best shot when they know that others, not they, would be rewarded for their achievements.

Team building must build strong relationships. It must convince members that each one plays an important role and they must complement each other.

You must demonstrate that by helping each other, one works with the team can do more than working alone.

You must give attention to team competencies that build relationships.

These are interpersonal communication, diversity, and participative leadership.

You must also consider team attitudes like accountability, responsibility, respect, and trust.

Deliver Results.

The third purpose is the corporate goal achievement.

A team is created to achieve a goal. Team building increases its chances to success.

Team building programs run for the sake of fun aren’t funny.

Teams building exercises that emphasize the value of teamwork but do not contribute to the achievement of team goals waste time, money, energy, and opportunities.

Make your team building simple and powerful.

Get Team Commitment

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Building a team starts with team commitment. You need to get the commitment of the team leader, the members, and other stakeholders. Many team-building exercises fail because the people involved are not committed to their tasks and to each other.

1. When you decide to hold your team building workshop, begin with a contract or agreement with a trainer. If you are using your in-house trainers, you must get their commitment to helping you conduct your team building workshop. Seek his expertise so that you can present well your objectives to your boss.

2. Get the commitment of your boss to support your team building initiatives. Show him the benefits of having your team building exercises. It may increase revenue, reduce cost, help build a relationship, or prepare your team for the future. When your boss is committed, he can sponsor your initiatives. Your boss is your best ally.

3. If you are hiring a team building facilitator, hire those who do understand what they are doing. In the Philippines, many managers have the habit of “canvassing” for the team building modules instead of qualifying expert facilitators. You do not begin building a team by buying modules because team building is not a product, but a process that will help you equip your team to perform effectively. Think of it as an intervention or a solution.

Canned team building programs are for everyone, and what is for everyone is to no one. Your team building expert should be able to help you design and develop your solutions- yes, even the ones which are not yet existing.

Get your facilitators’ commitment to help you through the process. Facilitators who are too busy to explain what you need to know aren’t facilitators.

Remember this: a team building workshop must be tailor-fit to your team because your team is unique.

Remember this also: your contract with your team building facilitator must include the assessment, design, development, implementation, and evaluation of your team building program. You must not shortchange yourself. You do not save money by short-circuiting the team-building process.

4. Once you and the trainer have inked your contract, you and the trainer need to work with other key stakeholders to get their support. I do not require this, but other stakeholders need to know that a team building workshop will be conducted.

For example, I usually interview senior managers and the CEO. They will provide useful input about what your team needs to accomplish in your team building workshop. This will give me a view from the top. Also, other stakeholders may provide me information about challenges which you, the team leader, are not aware of.

5. More importantly, you have to get the commitment of your team members. You can start by asking them to answer some questions:
a. What do you think is the purpose of our team?
b. What support do you need from our team?
c. What supports our team can expect from you?
d. What do you like most about our team when it comes to performance?
e. What do you like most about our team when it comes to relationships?
f. What change do you want to see in our team?

Avoid the wrong road.

This is a common mistake. In my eight years of helping organizations build teams, many managers think that team building is a great opportunity to chill and relax. Others consider team building as an opportunity to exorcise the bad attitude of some team members. They pray that through inspirational speeches, team members will change the heart and be more committed to meeting the business objectives of the organization.

It is common that people go to a team building workshop clueless about the objectives of the event and hoping that their team building will not be as boring as last year’s.

Nine of ten people hired me because of the descriptions in my team building workshops. I will be saving time and earning more money by simply delivering the same programs again and again. But that is not okay.

That is not the best way to help customers.Customers have ideas about their problems, but sometimes they do not know how team building workshops can really help them. They need to know that process so they can maximize resources, time, and energy.

Team building begins with a commitment from everyone.

Getting the commitment of everyone: the management, your trainers, your members, the customers, and other stakeholders will put you on the right track. Team building is a contact sport.

Ensure the success of your efforts by bringing everyone to your side.

Jef Menguin

Plan for Success Before You Conduct Team Building Exercises

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Observe that in many team building games, facilitators require you to play one game after another. They give you instructions. Then tell you the time available for you — and the best time ever which you are not likely to beat.

They do not bother to tell you why you’ll play the game. There is no story. There is no reflection. You’ll get tired but there is nothing to learn.

And don’t forget, they also do not give you time to plan. If you are not planning for success, you will most likely fail.

Positive Team Building encourages you to design your success. It is not enough that you find the answers to your question or you see opportunities in every corner. You must plan for your success before you execute them.

Not only that. Your action plan must rely on the actions that will be taken by every team member. Your team action plan isn’t a plan on how you intend to make each member play. No way, Jose. Your members aren’t pawns in a chessboard. They must be the players to your game. Your action plan must promote self-reliance.

Plan for success.

Jef Menguin

What You Ought to Know About Team Building

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WHAT IS A TEAM?

A team is a group of people who are mutually dependent on one another to achieve a common goal.

An effective team function well together.

To achieve this, each team member must be able to achieve both personal and team goals. This ensures commitment and accountability. Team members must develop mutual respect and keep open and honest communication.

And more importantly, there is synergy. Each member of the team can produce more when they work together than when they work separate and independent of each other.

WHAT IS TEAM BUILDING?

Team building is a collective term for learning exercises used to enhance the capacity of team members to achieve team objectives and goals.

Basic team building exercises aim to define goals, clarify roles, encourage open and honest communication between members, establish decision-making process, and promote effective working relationships.

In team-based organizations, team building is a component of team development strategy.

WHAT ARE TEAM BUILDING FACILITATORS?

Team building facilitator help team members understand their common objectives. they guide teams in planning how to achieve those objectives. In this sense, team building facilitators are “neutral” and do not take particular position in discussion.

Professional team building facilitators have deep understanding of team dynamics and processes. The offer tools that teams can use to develop strategies and to execute plans.

Professional team building facilitators personalize experiences in enabling teams to achieve goals.

Excellent facilitators can help participants simplify complex problems.

Some facilitators are subject matter experts, trainers, and speakers too. However, when facilitating team building exercises, the facilitator’s primary role is not to inject knowledge or develop new skills but to guide team members so they can solve their challenges.

Not everyone who offers team building programs are facilitators. Some are events organizers, game masters, and training vendors. It is very important that you get the right persons who can help you build your teams.

WHO ARE THE PHILIPPINE TEAM BUILDING FACILITATORS?

They are professional team building facilitators who work with organizations, both private and public, to develop high impact teams.

Some are experts in facilitating outdoor, adventure type team building programs. They design and run competency-based programs which are fun-filled, goal-oriented, friendly, and safe. They facilitate small groups of twenty to corporate-wide sales rallies of 800 people.

Some facilitators are experts in facilitating executive retreats. We combine indoor and outdoor activities for executive retreats. Companies usually have executive retreats for strategic planning, change management, culture building, creativity and innovation sessions, and team leadership.

Jef Menguin heads this group of professional team building facilitators in the Philippines.

Hiring A Team Building Speaker

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A great teamwork speaker can

  • help you strengthen your team,
  • increase your corporate competitiveness, and
  • position your company for the next big thing.

To make the most of these opportunities, it is necessary that you choose the right teamwork speaker for your organization. Unfortunately, not everyone has good experiences in dealing with many teamwork speakers.

A common complaint is the lack of impact.

Nobody can explain the ROI for inviting a teamwork speaker.

You must have heard of the reasoning that “soft” skills cannot be measured. That is wrong on multiple levels.

I will not discuss today how to measure the impact or the ROI of inviting a teamwork speaker.

I will do is to tell you why many HR managers fail to get the right teamwork speaker and how to remedy this problem.

Later, I will give you suggestions on how to get a great teamwork speaker.

Listen to this: the problem usually begins with those who invite the speakers.

A Teamwork Speaker Who Doesn’t Know What You Want —
No Matter How Motivational He Is — Cannot Help You.

“We have a business meeting two days from now, and we need a speaker on teamwork”

“Why do you need a speaker who will talk about teamwork?”

“Because we do it every year.”

“What do you mean? You invite a speaker to talk about teamwork every year?”

“Yes, sir!”

“And have you seen any improvement? Have you met your objectives? Do you have better teams now?”

“I do not know sir. But for the last three years, our resource speakers lectured for 2 hours. We were bored to death. This is why we want a motivational speaker who will talk about teamwork this year?”

“What made you think that a motivational speaker can help you?”

“I do not know sir, but my boss told me to find one? Are you available sir?

“I will be available in 30 days, but I am not sure I can help you.”

Most professional speakers have experienced this conversation. Those who are inviting them do not know the purpose of the invitation — aside from the fact that they need someone who will talk about teamwork.

Anyone who wants to earn easy money will talk about teamwork, anytime, even without any preparation. Any speaker who will accept an invitation without understanding the need of the audience serves only his or her interest. No matter how “motivational” he is, he does not speak to help you.


Be Certain that You Really Need a Team Building Speaker

I’ve said it before and I will say it again: the responsibility to build the team is upon the team leader.

If your team leaders are not effective communicators, train them to become effective communicators. Let them tell your team story. Encourage them to paint the picture of your team.

Teach your supervisors to speak.

Teach your managers to speak.

Teach your CEOs to speak.

And encourage a teamwork culture.

No teamwork speaker can cure a company with a broken team spirit.

Hire a Team Building Speaker
Only to Support Your Business Goals

Do it right the first time.

Don’t waste your money and effort on something that will not bring a return on your investment. Be wiser. You build a team to achieve your business goals, and therefore, every speech or workshop or seminar or group activities must serve your specific team purpose.

If you are not clear about the purpose of your team or of your team-building efforts, it is best not to get a speaker this time.

Instead, seek the help of your human resource department. Most of the time, they can help you.

Go back to the drawing board. Align your team objectives to your team strategies.

If your HR department lacks the experience to help you, contact me. I will tell you what you need to hear.

Require Him to Speak About a Specific Need

A professional speaker will speak with understanding.

He (or she) will most likely get information from you. He will ask you what you want, and he will be ready to tell you — after assessment– what you really need.

Yes, you can tell the speaker about your specific challenge.

Find the speaker who is the right fit to your company.

There are speakers who cannot speak outside their pet topics. They will do all acrobatic acts to find a link between your problem and their pet topics.

Think twice.

Every good speaker needs time to prepare.

I still do not know how other speakers can deliver 24 speech topics in a one month. Maybe they have researchers interviewing participants and digging solutions while they speak.

But someone who does not have the time to craft a speech unique to your situation and problem will find it difficult to serve you well.

If you will use the form on my website, you will observe that I ask preliminary questions. I need your answers to these questions before I can agree to work with you.

And I will ask more during our initial meeting. Then I will try to convince you to allow me to speak to some of the participants because I want to fully understand your business.

This is my style. And this is why I avoid daily speaking engagements. I value each client like a gem.

Speech Topics You Can Ask Team Building Speakers to Deliver

Your objectives will define speech topics.

I will describe to you some of the teamwork topics that you can assign to your speaker.

Accountability. Some team members play blame games. For many companies in the Philippines, the “accountable person” is the team member who should take all the blame.

Accountability is not about who to blame when problems come.

It is a call to be “counted”, to volunteer, to take responsibility, and recognize the importance of your work to the success of others.

Trust. I can tell you six elements of team trust. These are confidence, competence, compassion, congruency, communication, and consistency. Without trust, no team-building efforts will ever succeed.

No need to talk about trust if this is not the problem of your team.

I suggest that you use some tools to determine the culture of trust in your organization. Then get a speaker to talk about specific steps to encourage a trusting culture.

Conflict (or the Fear of Conflict). Most of the times this needs a full-blown retreat or a coaching program. But conflict is ever-present in teams especially with teams composed of high flyers. This is not a worry among low flyers.

A simple survey can help you zero in on the cause of conflict: lack of trust, misaligned or unclear goals, undefined roles, unclear communication lines, decision-making process and others.

The objective of your speaker is not only to encourage people to embrace conflict. Your speaker must be able to show how to address specific causes of team conflict and the steps everyone must take to master (or at least manage) conflict in the workplace.

Improving Performance by Clarifying and Setting High Goals. Many team members find it difficult to achieve team goals because leaders fail to clarify goals and excite teams to achieve goals.

Of course, the better step is for you to teach team leaders how to clarify team goals.

Defining Team Roles. If your team building speaker will address your team leaders, tell him to show simple and specific steps to clarify team roles.

Hint: find out how to make a team charter and some ideas on one-page management which is a lot simpler than most key performance indicators templates.

In a full-blown workshop, you have to put together the following: Goals, Roles, Communication, and Decision Making.

Team Communication. There are thousands of topics on communication. So be specific. Do you want your speaker to teach your team interpersonal communication, collaborative communication, or assertive communication?

Do you want them to have more confidence in communicating with clients, with bosses, with suppliers, or with each other?

Team Customer Service. Most customer service training programs focused on individuals serving customers. Training teams how to serve customers is ten times better.

The mindset is different and the standards are higher. This is more in the private sector than in government agencies.

There can be hundreds of topics that I can include here. Each one addresses specific team issues, problems, or challenges.

You can talk about team excellence, team execution, team problem-solving, team respect, team agility, team change, team flexibility, team performance, team innovation, and more.

Filipinos are emotional people. This is good.

Emotion is energy in motion. Emotions, not logic or statistics or arguments, move people. And Filipinos with malasakit are team players.

How Often Should We Invite a Team Building Speaker?

Whenever you need them.

Not whenever you have an event.

Your need should be the only reason why you must invite a team building speaker. Remember, team leaders can do better if you will train them in team leadership.

Do you need a speaker every month? I think some companies find it practical to invite a team speaker every month.

These companies have already mapped out the solutions they want from the speaker. They have already explored other options and they find that inviting a team building speaker is the most practical and the fastest way to improve their teams.

However, 99.9 percent of teams out there are clueless.

To invite a clueless motivational speaker to motivate your clueless people is a waste of time and opportunity — and that is the surest way to demotivate your people.

Make Him or Her Speak During the Most Appropriate Event

I can speak in Flag Ceremonies.

Most organizations have weekly flag ceremonies. Others invite a speaker every month. You can give a speaker like 15 to 30 minutes.

If your company is in the Laguna area, contact me a week or two before your event. Tell me everything I need to know. Get someone to fetch me and to bring me back to my cave afterward.

You can make your team building speaker share ideas before your crisis management seminars. Inspire team spirit because crisis management is a team effort.

Make him speak before you conduct your strategic or business planning. Most of these sessions are on numbers. It is more effective to remind them that you are planning and strategizing not just for profits but for people. And your people are the makers of your success.

Make him speak during anniversaries. Excellent teamwork speakers know precisely how to recognize the efforts given by everyone to make things happen. Of course, he is not there to replace the inspirational speech of the CEO or the Chairman of the Board.

A talk on personal excellence is good. A talk on team excellence is always better. Make the most of every event to address your teamwork goals.

Having said that. Let your award giving be more on team performance than individual performance.

You can invite your team building speaker to your team meetings. I know of managers who meet for at least two hours almost every day. On some days, bring together your employees to listen to a speaker.

I can share with you more speaking occasions but I have to stop here. I am sure you got my point. Our imagination is our limit.