The Pitch: Selling Team Building Events To Executives | Accolade ...

Team building events continue to gain traction in the corporate world as immeasurably valuable tools for bringing workforces together. But selling the idea to your executive staff isn?t always easy.

We?ve written on the blog before how the value of team building events is a contested issue. In spite of the fact that businesses who engage in team building events benefit from the experiences ? noticing improved morale, communication, productivity, and creativity ? there are plenty of detractors who claim that, because not all of team building?s merits are quantitative, the approach to managing through team building is a waste.

However, that perspective is a minority one, and it has diminished over the past decade, with team building becoming more and more of a focus. And if you?ve arrived here ? reading this article ? it stands to reason that it isn?t you who need convincing, but maybe some of the executive decision-makers above you who hold the purse strings.

It?s true that executives typically need to see and acknowledge a palpable ROI on anything before they?ll spend money on it. And given the claims that some of team building events? benefits don?t always show up on pie graphs (which in itself isn?t really true ? businesses typically realize gains in quality control and productivity after participating in team building), selling team building events can be tricky. That being said, here are a few solid selling points that can help:

Get ROI On Corporate Events & Entertainment

One of the great things about team building events is that they can be integrated into corporate events and entertainment, such as the office Christmas Party, New Year?s party, or summertime office picnic. Executives might grimace at having to spend money on those sorts of events, but they still do it. At the very least, most businesses hold some sort of Christmas party. The ROI reasoning for these events is to increase morale. Well, morale is a completely immeasurable factor, and yet executives will OK office events.

This is a perfect opportunity to further increase the ROI of corporate events and parties. By adding in fun, team building-inspired events, corporate entertainment will also contribute to increased productivity, trust, communication, and quality. In this way, team building become a value-added component of an expenditure that executives were already prepared to make, anyway.

Start Small

If you have an executive team that is really skeptical of the value of team building events, suggest that you start small. Rather than involving the entire workforce in a wide-ranging event, starting with one specific department can serve as a test segment to see the effects of team building.

The best approach is to bring up this idea in the context of a meeting where a faulty department or business process is being discussed, and a solution searched for. Has a team really let the business down? Is there a portion of the company that is constantly feuding, and multiple approaches have already been tried, but to no avail? This is a perfect opportunity to suggest a team building event as a trial. If it has a positive impact on a small, dysfunctional component of your business, then you?ll have justification in expanding a future event to include the entire team.

Involve The Execs

We?ve written time and time again here on the blog that team building isn?t solely about employees ? it also must involve management as well. In many cases, barriers form between management and staff, which are often the cause of blockages in communication, oversight, and trust. This is equally true when it comes to the executive staff and middle management.

There is no reason why team building cannot involve executives. While there might be a reluctance for executives to involve themselves in a team building event, it?s worth noting that attending such an event need not implicate the executive as ?the problem.? Generally, issues in the office are systemic, and because they affect the entire team, the entire team should be involved.

Convincing your executive staff to invest in team building can be a process. But if you can manage to just get them to experience one single event ? and its benefit ? you?ll sell them for life on the merits of team building!

Thanks for reading our article! Are you interested in planning a team building event? Be sure to contact Accolade Corporate Events, for a FREE, no-hassle consultation!

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 29th, 2012 at 4:00 pm and is filed under Team Building. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Source: http://www.accolade-corporate-events.com/team-building-blog/2012/11/the-pitch-selling-team-building-events-to-executives/

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