The Real Reason Teams Invite Me to Dinner After a Workshop (Part 2)

This is Part 2 of a series on the difference among team bonding, team building, and team development.

In Part 1 of this series, I talked about why Team Bonding, Team Building, and Team Development aren't the same, even though people often use the words interchangeably. This week, I want to zoom in on team bonding specifically, and tell you about something that happens almost every time I run a CliftonStrengths® workshop.

Near the end of the day, someone invites me to a team dinner, or out with the group.

I used to think that was just nice. Now I think it's actually telling us something about the difference between team bonding and team development.

Quick CliftonStrengths® note for anyone newer to this: one of the 34 themes is called Woo®, short for Winning Others Over. People with strong Woo® are great at walking into a room, meeting new people, and quickly making them feel comfortable. These are the people who don't know what a stranger is, those are just friends they haven't met yet.

I have VERY low Woo®. On top of that, I was diagnosed with Asperger's. In college my best friend said that talking to me was like pulling teeth. So, there's that. It's definitely not my social skills.

So when a team invites me to dinner after spending one day with them, it's not because I worked the room. Something else happened.

I'm going to share what I feel is a cheat code for putting on workshops. It's something I stumbled onto years ago when I had a lot of Relators® in the group. Knowing that Relator®s need something to grab onto to click and let you in, I tried something out. Something really foreign to me.

I talked about myself. And I let the group ask me questions.

Boy, did I feel awkward. And I still do feel awkward when I do it today.

Of course, I do a few other things the coaching and workshop textbooks tell you to do, like model vulnerability first. So I share about my social challenges overcoming Asperger's and other vulnerable ways I conquered my weaknesses. By the end of the day, there's a level of trust in the room that wasn't there at 9am.

This tracks with what Gallup's engagement research has found for years: how people feel about their working relationships matters a lot more for performance than how much fun they had together.

The dinner invite is bonding. But it happened AFTER the development work, not instead of it.

I think a lot of teams have this backwards. They schedule the fun activity (dinner, escape room, retreat) hoping it creates the connection that leads to better teamwork. Sometimes it does, for a week or two. People laugh together, learn a few things about each other, and feel a little closer.

But bonding on its own rarely changes how people communicate on a Tuesday afternoon when there's a deadline and someone drops the ball.

Real team development takes time and intentionality the same way building a relationship does.

If your team has done plenty of bonding activities but the day-to-day hasn't really changed, that might be why.

Awkward turtle wave,
Reuben

P.S. If this hit a little too close to home (the bonding-without-change part, or maybe the Asperger's part), reach out and let's talk about what a CliftonStrengths® or team development workshop could look like for your team. You can connect with me here or find me on LinkedIn.

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