How ‘Team Days’ Contribute to Business Success


When the pressure is on, taking time out for team building activities can seem an unnecessary extravagance. Let me share a personal experience, where so many skills were put to the test and learning was achieved in just two one-hour experiences.

Collective Action Leads to Team Success

Escape Rooms – have you heard of these? They are fun and brilliant for team building and learning. I was part of a team who signed up to give it our best shot. We successfully completed an escape in under 50 minutes one morning and enjoyed it so much that we booked onto the final slot available in the evening! 

The first time around we didn’t even think to turn the light switch on and that was our first clue! We definitely didn’t make that mistake again. The second escape room was a totally different experience and theme. It seemed so much harder, but we had learnt a lot about each other, our approach and we applied a formula that worked. 

We were triumphant on our collective success when we improved on our score from the first round. There was a feeling of connection and motivation within the team. We had pride in the knowledge that we had all contributed and had got through a tough challenge together.

In evaluating the activity, we all agreed that everyone’s contributions were significant. Without any one of us, success would have been hindered and we may not have made it out. A personality profile on each participant may have highlighted specific reasons why we made such a great team, but the experience left us all feeling more confident in our abilities and driven to do more.

This is how we should all feel about our learning and experiences in the workplace. Imagine the business outcomes and individual’s job satisfaction if everyone in your team understood each other’s skills and collectively applied their experience and expertise to every project or challenge.


Learner Led Learning – Learning the Way you Learn Best 


As you think back to your childhood, do you remember your parents teaching you right and wrong based on their own experience/perspective? That is instinctive, but it is seldom the best way of learning. It is difficult to learn from other people’s experiences; we learn most effectively from our own.

Applying this to an organisational setting, the aim should be to create learning experiences and opportunities for our employees to apply and develop their skills. When they start out, they need support, guidance and positive encouragement, much like when you learnt to drive. This reduces as they progress to the next level, yet continuous support is needed through this learner journey to embed the learning.

If you want learning to be embedded, it should be fun. When we are having fun, we are energised and open to new ideas. We feel good about the process and can, therefore, absorb the information we are taking on more readily. With a practical element, we can consider how this can be applied. In short, we are more receptive and engaged. What’s more, laughing makes us live longer – so we should all strive to do more of this!

70:20:10 Research shows that working alone in the traditional classroom setting is the least effective for learning. It is considerably more beneficial for the individual and organisation to create collaborative learning opportunities. Escape Rooms is one example and the learning could be brought back into the workplace and applied to current projects, with immediate effect. 

Your team are already brimming with knowledge and skills,  but are you fully utilising these? Given the time and space to focus on a specific outcome, they will contribute, learn from each other and grow in confidence, individually and as a team. 

Remember, learning is an ongoing process. Regular support and development opportunities will add greater value to the individual and the organisation, compared to an annual training session to tick a box.  


Human Connection Improves the Working Environment

Team days provide the opportunity to get to know one another outside the workplace. Without work pressures, it is possible to reach a deeper level of connection to one another. We discover approaches, interests and values in common; those personal links which build rapport. 

This human connection improves our capacity to trust each other, to better understand the perspective of others, to listen and cooperate.  In our experience, it does reduce workplace tensions and lead to a more supportive and collaborative work environment. In turn, this increases the productivity of individuals and employee retention.


SMART Outcomes from Krush Coaching Workshops

If you are looking for new development opportunities for your team, Krush Coaching creates fun and interactive workshops aimed at boosting business performance. The approach is based on psychological research into effective learning and development. Information is delivered in ways which are easy to understand and directly relevant to the participants.

Whilst we ensure the sessions are enjoyable, they are underpinned by SMART foundations. Like you, we care about your ROI with regards to the development of your people. Our focus is on the implementation of learning to achieve organisational goals.

We ensure that each individual in our workshops leaves with an implementable action plan at the end of every workshop. The ownership of this action plan sits with the individual who has created it. They are therefore more motivated to make it happen, yet still, need to be held accountable.

Even with the best-laid plans, if we don’t hold ourselves accountable and complete the actions, we won’t be any further along the line. Have you ever said you really want to do something and found 5 years later you’ve still not done it? Accountability and motivation are key. 

This is where on-going input from a professional performance coach pays dividends. Through support, encouragement and challenge, coaching helps individuals to remain focused and to fulfil their goals. This builds confidence and skills to benefit the participant and the organisation.


In Summary

After our basic and core needs are met, it is human nature to strive for more, to be better (Maslow’s hierarchy and self-actualisation). Given the right opportunities, individuals and teams can develop and collaborate in order to realise their full potential. An experimental approach helps encourage the application of learning, whilst building human connections that can transform teams. With performance coaching, the chances that self-led actions and goals are realised is greatly increased.

If you would like to see a shift in your team dynamics, build connection and inject some energy into your teams – get in contact with our team on 07792 620112, we’d love to discuss our Learning for Development solutions with you. 

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