Laurie,
My department is having a three-day conference and part of the second day will involve a team building event. Must I participate the team building portion of the event? What about the company sponsored events in the evening? Do I need to have dinner with my colleagues? What’s the rule on this?
Thanks,
GRPI
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Dear GRPI,
Very simply: you don’t have to do anything at work except your job. You don’t have to participate in a team building event, you don’t have to eat dinner with your colleagues, and you don’t have to follow any imaginary rules.
Just know that when you publicly opt out of these events, you are playing a game of high stakes poker. Your boss will tell you that the team building event is part of a thoughtful and important agenda created for your professional development. Your Human Resources professional may tell you to trust the process. Your peers may look at you, roll your eyes, and say to themselves, “Can you just shut the hell up and participate? You’re slowing things down and we want to get this over with so we can hit the bar.”
If you resist the team building event, you better be sure that your performance speaks for itself. Your supervisor may peg you as difficult, your division’s Vice President may discount your future leadership potential, and your Human Resources professional will think that you don’t get enough attention from your spouse.
Here’s what I think: if your performance is good and you don’t want to participate, don’t.
- Be subtle, be thoughtful, but don’t be an asshole about it.
- Excuse yourself from the event and take a walk.
- Grab a few minutes with your boss and tell him/her why the team building event is bullshit.
You are paid based on how well the company meets its shareholders’ expectations. More specifically, your merit increase is then calculated based on your part in the company’s overall success. Feel free to tell your boss that the best team building activity comes from your team’s successful completion of real work that has a measurable and specific impact on shareholder value.
You can also say that you feel it’s fair to be judged on your attitude towards your colleagues. It’s fair to penalized for immoral and unethical behaviors, as well. What’s not fair is to be pulled away from important and compelling work that’s in the best interest of shareholders in order to balance an egg on a spoon as you wear a stupid blindfold.
Part II: you also asked about after-work dinners at company events. Most business dinners are optional; however, your boss won’t tell you that and may not know it. People feel compelled to attend these stupid dinners because they feel it’s compulsory. Those people are suckers.
I ditched a business dinner, a few months ago, so I could keep up a training schedule for a 5K run. I would never let anyone tell me that it was the wrong decision. If I want face time with the VP, I’ll get it. I don’t need to eat beef wellington and drink cheap merlot to improve my reputation with senior management. Neither do you.
I hope this helps.
Love,
Laurie
PS - You’ll know that you are one of the least powerful people in a room if you are participating in a team building event and others are watching & observing. Sucker.
Amen, Laurie!
Sadly, there are workplaces where even the dinners are really not optional, and bosses who’ll punish you for bowing out. One boss said that my not attending happy hours made my top performance look self-serving.
In the past few years, I’ve slowly realized that there are people who =love= teambuilding activities. They do not enjoy their work, and any exception to the standard workday makes their lives a little bit less drab. If only I could find the right balance between respecting their needs and … surviving, b/c I really hate arbitrary, counter-productive monopolization of my free time THAT MUCH.
One evening, I dragged myself from a long day of meetings to the restaurant where the guests/potential project partners were being entertained. All the admins and some of the project managers had gone home after work and decked themselves out. When they saw I was still in my suit and hadn’t added make-up, they asked if I hadn’t known about the dinner. They wouldn’t have missed the evening for anything.
Over dinner, the same exact MSG-laden menu we in the meetings had been served at lunch, there was a wine tasting. The wines were mostly sweet syrups of no distinction, and I had to listen to drunken quips about Americans not appreciating culture. At 10 PM I was falling over from exhaustion and excused myself.
Getting written up for leaving early made me laugh; knowing I insulted people for whom this evening was the highlight of the month still makes me cringe.
Events termed “Team Building” are becoming more and more popular in corporate America - unfortunately there’s often no team building involved and the events become an opportunity for those involved to either butt kiss or bash their peers in an “accepting enviroment”. Laurie is right - those with power are often tuned out of the activities - obsessively checking their blackberrys or having side conversations amongst themselves - while those without it are overly enthusiastic, trying to “win points” with the boss by saying the right thing. My suggestion for those who’ve been asked to attend “mandatory” (and ps even if they’re not they really are) team building sessions = find a new job. Stat. Any company that needs to force their employees to work together and get along has way more problems than low team morale.
thanks laurie. i once worked for co-evps who reported to the CEO. they had offsite meetings with compulsory dinners and events for the SVPs in attendance. occassioanally one of the SVPs would try to get out of something. the EVPs did not like it at all, and did not forget it. one time i heard a guy getting bitched out by his bosses (behind his back) because he didn’t want to participate in any of the group “leisure time” activities which included skeet shooting, golf, and a historic tour (who could blame him — jeez). it’s a very tricky thing, turning these “optional” social events down if your goal is to keep climbing the ranks. personally, i admire anyone who has the courage to opt out from corny bullshit. at the same time no one likes to work with others who project an aura of being “too good” for the rest of us.
These are great comments. You ladies need to write about your own team building experiences!
I went ape shit, once, over drawing a journeyline. If you don’t know what a journeyline is, you’re not missing out.
Sorry about the 4-month late comment, I’m new here and have been catching up ever since your 100 quirk-list.
In my previous job we were signed up for a ‘compulsory for everyone’ car-based treasure hunt teambuilding session.
The format was: 5 cars (small company), Manager in the driving seat, Team Lead next to them with a map, 2-3 engineers (inc. me) in the back doing the running at each map point. Like a really clever analogy of our roles, you see.
I hate these contrived events & found the whole analogy massively patronising, but I learned two valuable lessons that day:
1. It was time to grow a pair & start saying no. Team building is for suckers™ & if you believe it you’ll live with the consequenses or reallyhate yourself for playing along.
2. It was time for a new career. 7 years was more than enough time spent as a passenger of some fools driving in the wrong direction. Hey, look at that: It was a good metaphor after all!
Neil
(Neil is now a mostly-happy Project Manager for a larger company…
Neil,
I’m glad you got the hell out of that company. Good call. Thanks for sticking around & reading the posts, too!
Love,
Laurie
Actually, that company closed down this Christmas. Gave me that confusing feeling: You know, where you feel bad for your former colleagues & friends, but secretly your cold dark heart is glad and happy and laughing?
Oh right - That’s just me, then?