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Monday, April 6, 2015

Team Building / Corporating People


Comment fidéliser vos employés
How to win the loyalty of your team

Corporate team building


Some days ago I read a presentation created by the HR team of an international company. I was amazed reading their vision about hiring (and as a consequence, firing) people.

For example, they said that it is more profitable for the company to have One Outstanding employee instead of two Adequate Employees since the outstanding employee gets more done and costs less than two adequate employees. So they work hard to have only outstanding people. For doing so they pay Top of Market so the employee will not desire work anywhere else. This reasoning is based on the following questions:
  • what could this person get elsewhere?
  • what would the company pay for replacement?
  • what would the company pay to keep that person?

as a consequence, they developed the following strategy
  • pay the employee more than anyone else likely would
  • pay the employee as much as a replacement would cost
  • pay the employee as much as the company would pay to keep him if they had a higher offer from elsewhere

However, this strategy is specific to this particular company. Most of the companies do not pretend to pay this kind of salary and they do not have only outstanding people, but a balanced mixture of outstanding and adequate employees, which at the end form a good and performing team.


Team building ideas


In any case, once you have managed to have a good team, once that you have inspired the team and make all the other teams to feel jealous; it is necessary to keep the peace and make the team members to work together as a single entity.

A good manner of doing so is by giving them a common goal and a "team spirit".

A very graphical example is a Rugby team where all the members have the same goal, the same motivation and everybody knows his own role and trusts in the other members. Moreover, the team is auto-organized and goes at the same peace.

This is a common  practice in Agile Methods.


Team building principles


Many companies have a very strict policy about Customer Satisfaction, how to follow it and how to satisfy it.

Very few of them also have a Reliable Employee Satisfaction policy. However, this is the work produced by the team which can satisfy the customer, isn't it? Thus, having a strong team will lead to a strong customer satisfaction.



The goal is to shape the team so it can answer as a single entity to any customer request. The most the team will be cohesive, the most the responses will be solid.

Moreover, a solid team will inspire the members and will motivate them. The goals and the responsibilities will be shared between them and will make them to be “committed”, and not only “involved”.

Some techniques have been developed to help work-groups evolve into a cohesive unit, this is the case of team building.

Team building skills



The team cannot be “auto-built” since the main goals are given by the management. Thus, Team Building actions shall be launched by the management and driven by the team. Remember that the team members will held the company image and reputation.

One of the reasons of the success of a company depends on its ability to build effective teams and and its capacity to maintain them.


It is very interesting to see that a single highly motivated person can inspire others, he only needs an opportunity to share his passions.

A united team will care about holding one each other and thus holding the company’s goals.

If you are working in something exciting that you really care about, you don't have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.
S. Jobs

I is very simple, it is like a flu, put one inspired and motivated person in contact with others within an appropriate environment and the virus will spread by itself as I explain in "Working in an Inspiring Company".


Motivated and united teams will easily hold the company’s prestige by making the members to feel “Corporate”. In this way, Team Building equals Corporating People.

United teams will be happy to work in your company and will persuade the members to not to leave: why looking elsewhere if the motivating team with challenging work and the inspiring company are there?

Team building is a perfect way to win loyalty of your employees. Moreover, people around will wonder about and will desire to work with you.

Team Building Activities



There is no “one-fit-all” activity”. You cannot propose any kind of activity to your team; it depends on everybody’s preferences (sports, games, etc) and on your specific goals and objectives  (role definition, team reinforcement, problem solving, team creation, learning new strategies, etc).

The building activities may be different from one team to another, it really depends on personal interests, on peoples profiles, on the work itself and on the goals you are targeting, of course. Then, it is no easy to find the Building Activities to propose to the team; but the easier way is simple:

Ask the Team




Build your teams
Corporate your employees
Inspire customers
Motivate people



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