Team Building

Over twenty years, I have been head of four companies: a child, a youth, and two professional associations. As such, I could understand the importance of team building in depths.

Since my studios were always open to everyone, without any entry exams, my groups included remarkably diverse people. They were of different age, they demonstrated different talents, and they arrived with different motives and intentions. It is a highly complex task to make these people into welcoming, inclusive, and productive companies, to introduce new members year after year into cooperative work, and to solve emerging problems. I designed my current team building methods according to my experience mentioned before.

It is well known that a given group benefits from every social gathering: pure entertainment, a common solution to a challenge different from the group’s profile, or professional development. I consider all of these aspects fundamental: in my trainings, the primary goal is professional development and applicability while the most important instrument is carefree game. My main designed method is nonverbal theatre which is based on drama acting heavily building on the scientific fact that the combination of movement and intellectual abilities results in one of the most effective form of learning.

All of my trainings are different and are preceded by shared thinking, planning, and goal-setting with the Client (getting to know the participants, mapping the functioning and problems of the community, and identifying specific needs, tasks, and areas of improvement). My method can be used effectively as training for small or medium-sized enterprises, workplace communities, and multinational corporations on the level of the training for greater company structure units, for particular departments, or for only some employees.

The list of reasons and goals can be manifold, however, I consider utmost important that a strong relation between group members should be achieved by individual skills development through the better understanding of each other. Since, without appropriate self-image or self-understanding, cooperation is impossible.

Here are some non-exhaustive, potential goals possible to be achieved with the help of my team building trainings:

• mainly areas of individual skills development: self-understanding, adaptability, creative thinking, time management, conflict resolution, constructiveness , empathy; releasing presentation and creative skills, summoning hidden reserves; understanding and developing employer and employee skills; adopting team player attitude
• mainly areas of community skills development: cooperation, trust and communication between group members, integration of new group members, willingness to compromise, making decisions, solving problems; increasing group performance efficiency

The duration and place of trainings are chosen in agreement with the Client according to the goals and possibilities of the particular type of training. A general team building programme takes 60-120 minutes, which makes it suitable to fit the training in the timetable of a conference, while a complex development training is advised to last for half a day, for a whole day, or for a series of occasions. In the case of certain types of training, I recommend a multiple-day, camp-like session: isolation from the ordinary by “creating our own world” reinforces the experiences and knowledge acquired together and it generates a shared identity, which increases the motivation for work.

Specialized Team Building

1. Team Building with Gesture Theatre
   In this special method, together with the participants lacking preliminary training, we can create short, movement theatre productions. This programme is a great experience for “laypeople” involved as creators, performers, and viewers while the developmental, problem-solving, and team-building benefits are also extraordinary. This method is especially recommended when the primary goal is to get to know each other better (e.g. introducing different departments of the same company to one another).
2. For Teachers
   I have designed this type of training especially for teachers, in which the main aim, besides team building, is methodology improvement. The programme is carefree amusement and self-reflection during which participants discover their and their colleagues’ new aspects, their creative and presenter skills come to surface, and their creativity and confidence increase. All of this is achieved through activities which can later be applied in their teaching practice – they are noted and discussed at the end of trainings. This programme is recommended to teacher groups of any area of expertise, but especially to language teachers.
   This training can be used with bigger teaching staff, but it is more effective with groups of smaller number of people: the methodology part can be designed more specifically for teacher groups of similar area of expertise. If the aim is that departments know themselves or one another better, this method can be combined with the one in section 1.
   I also recommend the gesture theatre training for the mutual, guided creation of a Prom dance, in which, for instance, the beauties, dark sides, and stereotypes of a teacher’s career are made into a spectacular and humorous choreography. This is, at the same time, a great team building experience and a trip to the movement theatre.
3. Thematic Programmes
   General team building trainings can be based on specific themes (holidays, events, important results, company anniversaries, etc.) by exploiting intrinsic qualities and humour present in a company in order to heighten a sense of community.