Motivated March: Building a culture of motivation through team-building

Motivated March is a great way to challenge and inspire your teams by trying out something new. Never tried a team-building event before? Make this the month you help your team build a culture of motivation and collaboration by creating a memorable team-building experience.

As a professional climber and speed record holder, motivation has been an integral part of my success, on and off the rock. Without it, I would not have been driven enough to go after and break speed records around the world. It kept me hungry, inspired and determined to achieve my goals.

I learned that teamwork was an essential part of my success. Collaborating with unlikely partners and in some pretty unusual ways taught me how to bring out the best not only in myself but others as well.

I recently facilitated team-building events for a winning women’s basketball team and a top financial consulting firm at my home gym, Diablo Rock Gym.

Team-building is a fantastic way to:

Improve morale and build leadership skills.

Truly successful people and teams aren’t just about beating others. They are more interested in finding an edge to improve on their own previous performance. You could say they are in competition with themselves. One of the best ways I’ve found to do this is to put the team in a situation it’s not normally in with specific obstacles to overcome.

The financial consulting group I worked with wanted to empower their staff by creating a memorable experience. With 160 participants, they were placed into groups of 20 and given various challenges to overcome as a team; ranging from physical to intellectual.

It’s always interesting to see how quickly individuals can adapt as a team, engage each other, play together, and in general find ways to perform in an entirely new environment or level.

 Foster community, commitment and communication.

If you’ve ever participated in a ropes course team-building event, then you’ve probably been put in an uncomfortable position. This situation challenges groups to find solutions or at the very least, coping strategies to take on extremely new and often scary situations. They have to navigate their own personal issues (for example, fear of heights) while coming together for the greater good of the team.

They must choose a course of action and execute it, which only happens when participants collaborate openly. This sort of knowledge and deeper communication cannot be attained in the “same old” office environment, basketball court or the usual space the team performs.

If you’ve got a good or great team and you want to get them motivated to reach that next level of success, put them in an environment they are not regularly in and throw some unique exercises that challenge and inspire them. You’ll find that a little spark of new energy will come out of them. A team that knows a little more about each other can communicate quicker, more clearly and effectively.

Tap into undiscovered potential.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about team-building events is finding out that you have some hidden talent that will help your team go the distance. Everyone processes things differently and you may not discover that rising star if not for the specific challenge placed in front of them.

You must have a goal that is so enticing and universally wanted by all in your group in order to take the extra energy to push your team into uncomfortable situations. We all know that the best and biggest changes happen when you get out of your comfort zone.

The only thing that can motivate you to get uncomfortable is pleasure or pain. I can’t advocate the pain motivation, so ask yourself and your group, what is it that all of you are really motivated to go after?

If you have a group that wants to push it to another level, drop me a line and let’s see if I can motivate them to reach new heights this year.