This month, I want to share something that I saw at our inaugural Smart Women event in October.
One of the honorees, Tonia Irion, president of e-Cycle LLC, asked me if she could get into the main room early. She and her team had two tables in the room.
She wanted to lay out nametags for her employees, even though Smart Business only assigns people to a particular table, not a particular seat.
Irion’s reasoning was that she wanted her staff to get to know new people within the company. She didn’t want them to sit in the same configurations that they always do.
Out of your comfort zone
What a great idea. It was easy, only took a few minutes of her time and chipped away at the silos that often develop in organizations.
Her employees were already out of their normal habitat, which naturally puts them together in new ways. But she took it a step further.
We’re all a little guilty of getting comfortable with what works, whether that’s the people we eat lunch with, sit next to at a meeting or brainstorm with on projects.
I like the idea of shaking things up every once in a while — and who knows what it might spark. At the very least, it might energize your team, because routine can get dull.
It’s no accident
Smart Business recently started a monthly happy (half) hour that different departments host. Those employees get to pick a theme for the drinks and snacks. It’s another easy idea that gets us out from behind our desks and mingling with new people.
And these are just small examples. You could certainly try something bigger like laser tag, off-road driving or an escape room, in order to bring your team together and create new connections.
Of course, the trick is (and there’s always a trick) to keep it from becoming a forced icebreaker that just brings everyone together in solidarity against the activity. But you can’t count on this kind of team building happening by accident; sometimes it takes a deliberate push — whether that’s large or small.
