Building Your Team

Fun Corporate Team Building Events

Jazz Up Christmas Banquets and Year End Meetings with Quality Team Building Activities

December 13th, 2011

Want to jazz up your Christmas Banquet, holiday event, or year end meeting this year? A quality team building activity can add some fun and enthusiasm to the meetings and support a charity in the process. Charity team building events are still a fairly new invention, but these activities are growing in popularity by leaps and bounds every single year. These activities combine fun (and funny) exercises to build camaraderie to either build something or accumulate something that will later be donated to a charity on behalf of the sponsoring company or group.

For example, the grandfather of all of the charity team building events is the world-famous Build-A-Bike® team building event where participants work together to accumulate pieces of bicycles to build brand-new bikes for underprivileged kids in the area. This event is still the most popular, with good reason, because it combines fun and energy with an emotional appeal of helping kids. The big ending for these events is when kids come rushing into the room, and each individual team gets to donate their individual bike to a single kid. This leaves every participant feeling that his/her contribution was important to the success of the activity. Lots of fun!

Golf team building for a cause is the newest charity team building activity, and it is quickly becoming a popular choice because of the new economy that we are working in. This activity has participants accumulate non-perishable food items that are used strategically to design a custom golf-course for the group. Of course, once the course is dismantled, all of the food items are donated to a local food pantry. These food pantries are really struggling to keep up right now, because the number of families coming to them for food each week is increasing while donations are really low because of the economy. So they directors of these pantries are extremely grateful for these big donations (most often over 1000 lbs of food).

Another good choice is to do a scavenger hunt where participants race to accumulate items that are used to create care packages for soldiers who are away from their families. Especially around Christmas time, these care packages are a welcome to soldiers who are stationed in foreign countries.

For information about a charity team building event, call an event specialist at (800) 872-7830.

Team Building in Cities Outside the Major Metroplexes

November 24th, 2011

Just because your city has under 20 million people doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be able to schedule one of the best team building events in the world! Because of the size of The Leader’s Institute® Team Building company and because our team building instructors are based in cities across the United States, we can deliver team building events in just about any city in America, Canada, and Europe.

The following is a list of cities where we offer teambuilding programs and team building activities.

We offer over a dozen different programs including philanthropic events, workshops, seminars, and breakout sessions. For details about all of the options that are available in each location above, click the Team Building Events link in the tool bar at the top of the page. We look forward to working with you on your next program!

Astellas Builds Bikes for Boys and Girls Clubs of Dallas Texas in Team Building Event

September 5th, 2011

A fun, interactive Build-A-Bike Team Building Event in Dallas, Texas was sponsored by Astellas Pharmaceuticals with the end result being 14 new bikes donated to children from the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Dallas. The 7 boys and 7 girls that received the bikes enjoyed the moment along with the 90 people from Astellas Pharma Global Development, Inc. The action packed, fun event had the participants working in team and the teams working together to complete the tasks necessary to complete the bikes. The children received the bikes at the end of the program and when they entered everyone was full of cheers and worked top fit the bikes to each individual child.

After program there were many great comments on the event and how it was a great team building activity, as well as a lot of fun. The fun helped to reinforce the learning, and having the children present for the final part of the event was the icing on the cake. One of the comments was that in usual team building activities the learning is the main course and you don’t really realize the importance of the material until the end. But with this event, there was fun all the way through, and the learning made the event profitable. The Build-A-Bike Team Building Event combines the learning aspect along with the fun throughout the program so at the end it has been an enjoyable and profitable experience from beginning to end.

Thanks to Astellas and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Dallas for a great team building and leadership encounter. As one of the participants said after the event, “I’ve been in team building and leadership training fro over 20 years and this is the best I’ve ever experienced.”

Sodexo Serves up Bicycles in a Build-a-Bike Team Building Event in Tulsa Oklahoma

September 5th, 2011

The Food Services division of Sodexo cooked up an idea to include a Build-a-Bike ® team building event in their regional meeting in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Boys & Girls Clubs of Tulsa received new bicycles following the event. The regional management team set aside some time for community support in their quarterly meeting. The following video shows all the smiles that resulted.

Sodexo provides fresh, nutritious meals while working within the ethnic, cultural, and nutritional needs of their clients. They promote local, organic, and healthy ingredients grown through sustainable practices to keep their customers and their environment healthy and happy. The Build-a-Bike ® Team Building Event made some children happy as well.

East Jordan Iron Works Combines Learning and Fun with Camaraderie Quest Scavenger Hunt in Detroit Michigan

August 23rd, 2011

East Jordan Iron Works brought together 25 of their top leaders for a day of team building, learning and fun. The morning consisted of a Creating a Team Culture team building workshop that focused on building skills in leadership principles. The focus of the morning was sharing concerning different leadership principles with a time of sharing and then an opportunity to participate in an activity that reinforced the learning. It was a fact-paced, action-oriented time with very practical application. The afternoon was a Camaraderie Quest high tech scavenger hunt through the downtown section of Petoskey. Petoskey is a beautiful town on Little Traverse Bay of Lake Michigan (a good drive away from Detroit, Michigan). The downtown section is full of historical information, quaint shops, and visitor’s sites. The afternoon activity was enjoyed by the East Jordan Iron Works leaders as they had to work together to gather the information, pictures and videos that were requested.

Combining the Creating a Team Culture workshop with the Camaraderie Quest scavenger hunt made a full day of fun and learning. The principles of the morning were easily transferable to the afternoon activities. Things like smile more, remember names and encourage others were all skills they could put into practice to help them gather the clues, pictures and videos for the scavenger hunt. The principles on conflict also helped them work together to solve the problems of finding the different items they were asked to locate. By putting the two programs together East Jordan Iron Works made the most of the day’s activities.

Combining a Creating a Team Culture workshop with the Camaraderie Quest scavenger hunt was a great way to learn important leadership principles, practice leadership skills, and have a great time of fun and laughter reinforcing the material. Thank to EJIW for a great day and a great learning experience.

Adecco Builds Energy & Momentum with Build-a-Bike Team Building Event in Miami Florida

August 23rd, 2011

The Adecco Group met in South Beach Miami, Florida for a Team Building Event to build energy and enthusiasm and bicycles for kids. The meeting was to build company momentum for sales in a tough economy. At the Build-a-Bike Team Building Event ® held after a general session they had an opportunity to demonstrate their energy. As the following video demonstrates there was plenty to go around.

The Adecco Group, based in Zurich, Switzerland, is the world’s leading provider of HR solutions. With over 32,000 FTE employees and more than 5,500 offices, in over 60 countries and territories around the world, Adecco Group offers a wide variety of services, connecting more than 700,000 associates with over 100,000 clients every day. The services offered fall into the broad categories of temporary staffing, permanent placement, outsourcing, consulting and outplacement. The Adecco Group is a Fortune Global 500 company.

Heinz Supports Troops with Build-a-Bike Team Building Workshop in Orlando, Florida

August 19th, 2011

Heinz Supports Troops with Build-a-Bike Team Building Workshop in Orlando, Florida. Heinz took advantage of its National Sales & Marketing meeting to donate 100 bicycles to dependents of military families at a Build-a-Bike in Orlando, Florida. Heinz recently adopted the Wounded Warrior project as its corporate charity. At a dinner announcing their sponsorship, the company surprised the audience with a presentation of new bicycles to children with parents in the military. The following video captures the excitement and emotion of the event.

Families from the Army, Marines, National Guard and Air Force were recipients of this generous gift. In addition a large check was presented to the Wounded Warrior Project.

FIS Global Team Building Event Emphasizes Community in a Build-a-Bike in Orlando Florida

August 19th, 2011

FIS Global emphasized a commitment to community by having a Build-a-Bike team building event® in Orlando, Florida. The Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Florida received 46 new bicycles at the event. The following pictures shows the children doing a club cheer and then receiving their bikes.

FIS is one of the world’s top-ranked technology providers to the banking industry. With more than 30,000 experts in 100 countries. FIS delivers a comprehensive range of solutions for the broadest range of financial markets, all with a singular focus: helping their clients succeed. In Orlando they applied this focus on solutions in the community. The Build-a-Bike was conducted by The Leader’s Institute and gave FIS the opportunity to their focus a reality for the forty-six children.

Kim Hesselgrave of FIS said, “We have received some great feedback from our participants. Thanks or a successful event!”

Team Building Event from SunTrust Bank Makes Large Deposit in Children’s Hearts in Atlanta

August 19th, 2011

SunTrust Bank held a Build-A-Bike Team Building Event in Atlanta which culminated with the group donating 16 bikes to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Atlanta. Over 90 people participated in the event. The group was divided into 16 smaller groups that each had to participate in several activities, problem solving, and even some math to get the parts to build the bikes. Each team had to work well together, and work together with other teams to complete their projects and get the bikes ready for the children. Once they got all the parts they could assemble the bikes and at the end of the program children from the boys and girls clubs were introduced to receive the bikes. It was a great event, with opportunities for fun and learning, and a great “feel good” ending.

The group from SunTrust came from around the Atlanta area to participate in a day of meetings which culminated in the Build-A-Bike team event. The group participated well and worked with each other showing that SunTrust Bank is a great company with great people.

During the Build-A-Bike there were many opportunities to learn great team building and leadership skills and put them into practice. It is stressed from the start of the program that it is not a competition. The idea is to support and work with one another. It is a hard concept, especially when you’re divided into groups. By dividing into groups competition is almost automatic, even if it is discouraged. The problems that needed to be solved to get the bike parts were most easily solved when working with other teams. The most effective and efficient way to solve many problems is to ask others for help, but it is a hard thing to do, especially if you view it as a competition. But divisions, different locations, branches, departments; any thing that segments one company into many parts, can create unhealthy competition that keeps them from sharing vital information with other groups. Ultimately, the 90+ from SunTrust realized that they were one team, not 16 teams, but one team- made up of 16 groups, with one goal- to build bikes for kids. They did a fantastic job and not only did the 16 children that received the bikes benefit but so did the communities they live in. Thanks SunTrust for a great event.

Nexen Petroleum Team Building Event Builds Bikes for Children in Dallas

August 14th, 2011

Over 30 Nexen employees came from Canada, The United Kingdom and the United States to Dallas, Texas, to take part in 3 days of meetings that included a Build-A-Bike Team Building event®. The event has a great philanthropic twist at the end as Children from the Rockwall County Boys and Girls Clubs provided 6 children to receive the bikes at the end of the event. The three hour event had the participants involved in several fun activities that aided in their teambuilding and leadership skills. From the opening exercise to the giving of the bikes to the children the energy and enthusiasm was high and the laughter contagious.

What can a Build-A-Bike team building event® teach us about teamwork? One simple lesson that is experiences is that teamwork goes beyond the immediate team to involve a larger team. In this instance there were 6 teams given various tasks, but it wasn’t until they learned to work together across team boundaries that the problems were able to be solved. When the smaller teams enlisted the help of others the actual team work among teams provided the benefit. Often time companies are divided by location, divisions, departments, and in this case countries. But when we work across those boundaries to help each other progress really occurs. We may compete for limited human resources, time, financial consideration, budgetary appropriation, and any other things, but competition can become detrimental to the overall welfare of the larger company. If one branch succeeds at the cost of another the company at large suffers.

This is just one of the lessons demonstrated by the Build-A-Bike Teambuilding event®. The people at Nexen did a great job contributing the event and in making a positive difference in the life do six boys and girls, their families and the communities they live in.