Team Building is a big buzz word and the term has taken on many connotations in recent years. In terms of corporate development, team building experiences rely not on the activity itself, but on the curriculum and processing that accompany it. The activity -- be it a challenge course, rock climbing, craft-building, or music program -- is merely the tool that provides a high impact learning experience given the appropriate direction.
This is not to say that a team building program needs to be dry and academic. The very tools are what make the learning fun, exhilarating and memorable, thus facilitating transfer to the team's workplace relationships.
Effective teams require a group of people unified by purpose, focused on a mission and committed to success. Successful team building adventures generally begin with a pre-program assessment of a group and corporate involvement in designing the curriculum. The process reveals if the foundations of teamwork are already in place and determines the program approach. Without this knowledge and planning, the program can have adverse effects and intensify any resistance to team building.
Corporate leaders should also emphasize beforehand that participation is voluntary. They should encourage, but never pressure or require executives to partake. Few executives, if any, will refuse to participate, given the choice. The decision to participate empowers employees and conveys a commitment and a willingness to cooperate, thus setting the process of team building in motion.
In some cases, executives may be resistant because they don't want to open up and get "too personal" with their colleagues. Perhaps they've read or heard about an experiential program that got "too personal". There is a clear difference between one's personal and professional life. Corporate programs should focus on personal issues only in how they relate to professional relationships and improving organizational performance.

Current Trends

The United States has an estimated 100 established experiential learning providers and the list is growing. They range from consultants who work out of their homes to multinational performance improvement firms. Programs that were once considered "off the wall" have now become mainstream in the world of corporate training. Nearly all, if not all, of the Malcolm Baldridge Award winners have participated in experiential learning.
In the early years of experiential learning, many clients were primarily concerned with safety, perhaps because the industry was new and unfamiliar, and many of the programs appeared too risky. Today, the industry's growth and track record for safety has turned the market to focus more intently on the details of program design and the provider's ideology.
The market has expanded for Venture Up, the world's largest in house provider of interactive team building programs. Recent years have seen ever increasing numbers of conservative firms enrolling in Venture Up's team building and experiential learning programs, such as ropes courses, rock climbing and music programs. Such clients include: American Express, Bank One, Charles Schwab, Coopers & Lybrand, Deloitte & Touche, Ernst & Young, Finova, Transunion and Union Bank of Switzerland and Wells Fargo.
In the mid-1980s, Venture Up's corporate market was dominated by so-called "go-getters", aggressive sales forces and risk-taking upper-and middle management teams. That market is still strong, but what's more evident nowadays is that the groups are getting larger. Many firms are putting entire staffs through team building training - from the top brass to the front line -- and incorporating team building into their standard training curriculum. For years, Venture Up has trained Insight Direct staff of all professional levels. The worldwide distributor of computer products recently hired Venture Up to install a team building challenge course at its headquarters in Tempe, Arizona. Insight has expanded operations to England and plans are underway for another in-house Venture Up training program overseas. Successful companies such as Insight recognize that the human element is critically important to profit in the global marketplace, where competition continues to increase and product differentiation is increasingly difficult to sustain. Customers are loyal to companies who provide quality in products and services. And a company can best achieve this if staff at all corporate levels work effectively as team players.