How to Create an Inclusive Team Building Experience

Dear J.D.,

It is very nice to get a fun question for this column. I work on facilitation and teambuilding quite a bit with teams of all sizes, so I am always either coming up with my own new ideas for engaging options or scouring the market to learn what others are doing. I’ll give you a few suggestions, but remember that you don’t always have to have a full meal (as you’ve done with the cookout for over a decade) involved in the process. You could do something more casual like drinks (assuming everyone is comfortable around alcohol) with appetizers, or a buffet with limited options, or even vouchers for meals your team members can use with their friends or family members after they leave the event. You have traditionally come together over a meal, but let’s think outside that option for some very different ideas:

1. Many many teams enjoy booking a few hours at a bowling alley/pool hall/game environment. We have something here in Boston called Kings – here’s their website for reference, so you can search for something similar. Assuming people are physically capable of doing something like this, it can be a fun bonding experience that team members talk about for a long time afterwards. In most places food is available if people do choose to eat.
2. Agree on somewhere you all want to participate in a volunteer day, or create your own volunteer day. The summer months offer a lot of opportunities for outdoor activities such as helping clean parks and bike trails. It could be a teambuilding experience to create a list of organizations and opportunities to volunteer with, and then find a way to democratically choose which option to pursue. This first step could get employees talking about what they care about and offer a chance to learn more about one another.
3. Consider taking a class together. With the different eating preferences, you might even consider something like a cooking class, where you have someone show different ways to create vegan meals that are delicious! This could be a way of welcoming your newer team members and your existing team might learn something about their lifestyle choice, and find new menu options in the process.
4. Set up a few fun activities in a local park. It sounds like you have an area near your office that has served well as a cookout spot; it could be a good place to do team breakouts. You can organize classic icebreakers like a scavenger hunt, standing in a circle while one person tosses a ball to another person calling out their name, blindfolding one person while the other tries to guide them somewhere, or sitting in a circle and passing a wand around while each person says what they would like to change in their life with the wand – or you could make a day of it and do all of these and many more. There are thousands of options available if you just Google “outdoor teambuilding activities.”
5. Lastly, you could set up somewhere outside but keep the focus of the hours spent on work related activities. Use the time together to implement your goals for next year, talk about what’s working and what could be improved and share insights about learnings and observations. Being outside sometimes makes it feel less threatening and people tend to open up in different ways.

I hope these ideas are helpful for you to winnow down to a list of three for your decision-making committee. I give you a lot of credit for respecting the interests of your newer team members and taking the chance to step back and think about what you could be doing differently overall.

Dear Bev,

Our team has become somewhat stagnant. We rarely generate new ideas, make changes or try new things. Under my direction, we’re supposed to implement a new change effort once a year and I feel like I am pulling people away from important things to talk about what we can do next. When we first started the initiative seven years ago, team members would come with loads of ideas and would also be willing to be involved and help. Now I call a meeting to talk about brainstorming for 2025 and every single person tells me they are “too busy.”

One problem is that, in the past, many of the ideas we generated got slammed down by our senior partners. But a few of them survived and were implemented. Can you make someone participate? Should I be asking the senior partners (who do care about this process) to insist people come to the meetings? If they are forced to come are they going to be disgruntled and disengaged? This initiative is in my performance plan so I don’t have the choice to say I’m just going to ignore it.

S.E.

Dear S.E.,

In the many years I have been writing this column (over a decade now!) there are times I read notes from advisors or their team members thinking the person just really needs to vent about their team, their leaders and their frustration with not being able to do what they want – and sometimes need – to do.

This seems to be your case, and I don’t mean that judgmentally or critically. Let’s lay out the facts:

1. You have to do this activity because you are judged on it;
2. Your team members are disillusioned and probably too busy to participate; and
3. Your senior leaders (who are holding you accountable) are not willing to hold team members accountable.

From that, I conclude you have three good options here:

1. You are the person solely to come up with the best next idea and then socialize it. Or you could come up with options and give team members voting privileges. You keep the power to create and share ideas and choices.
2. You revisit one of the plans that were proposed in the past that have sat without attention –thereby causing some disillusionment – and gather a team to decide how to implement the idea.
3. You share with your senior leaders that you are dependent on other stakeholders within the firm to do what you are charged with successfully. You find others do not want to participate so you are looking for advice and support on what to do to get them fully engaged.

I’m not suggesting any of these are going to greatly shift your dynamic, but given what you outline here I believe they are your best options to avoid frustration and to ensure you meet your performance objective as outlined.

Beverly Flaxington co-founded The Collaborative, a consulting firm devoted to business building for the financial services industry, in 1995. The firm also founded and manages the Advisors Sales Academy. The firm has won the Wealthbriefing WealthTech award for Best Training Solution for 2022, 2023 and 2024. Beverly is currently an adjunct professor at Suffolk University teaching undergraduate and graduate students Entrepreneurship and Leading Teams. She is a Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst (CPBA) and Certified Professional Values Analyst (CPVA).

She has spent over 25 years in the investment industry and has been featured in Selling Power Magazine and quoted in hundreds of media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC.com, Investment News and Solutions Magazine for the FPA. She speaks frequently at investment industry conferences and is a speaker for the CFA Institute.

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