MAY 2008: BIZ LIFE; EXECUTIVE STRATEGIES
PHOTOS COURTESY OF SYNERGO
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Using retreats to advance your team
Collaboration is essential in the workplace, but the office
isn’t always the best environment in which to develop
rapport. Corporate team-building activities and retreats can
help by getting employees to interact outside the cubicle to
improve their performance on the job.
With the detached communications of cell phones and email,
it’s easy to lose touch with co-workers you see every
day, says Julee Wasserman. Her Glenwood, Wash., company,
Julee’s Gorge Tours, provides a host of recreational
activities designed to reconnect the team, address problems,
and get everyone to have a little fun.
Her most popular package, Wasserman says, is an outdoor
orienteering scavenger hunt, where teams are taught to use maps
and compasses. Through the activity, participants learn to work
together as a team and improve communication skills.
“It breaks the group out of their normal clique and
usually out of their normal comfort zone and forces them to
work together in a fun way,” says Donna Luna, a project
coordinator for Nike who has brought groups to participate in
Julee’s Gorge Tours. “When we go out there for a
team-building project, it’s not managers versus
employees. It’s a chance to mix together all levels in
your department.”
Erik Marter, owner of another corporate team-building company,
Synergo, based in Portland, takes corporate groups on
Survivor-style challenge courses that serve as metaphors for
situations they encounter in the office. One activity, for
instance, involves talking a blindfolded colleague through a
maze of mousetraps to improve communication and trust.
“A day on the challenge course can accomplish what you
would in a year in typical office conversations,” Marter
says.
But not all retreats have to be high energy. At Lonesome Duck
Ranch and Resort, in Chiloquin, corporate groups can choose to
golf, fish for trout in the Williamson River or just hang
out.
“I think the main thing for all of them is they want to
relax,” says owner Steve Hilbert. “You’ve got
five or six people sharing the same house, sitting in the
living room chit-chatting life away, but not in that formal,
meeting room atmosphere.”
John Von Schlegell, managing partner with Endeavour Capital in
Portland, says groups from his company have been to Lonesome
Duck three or four times.
“It’s a bonding experience, and people
aren’t distracted, answering calls and getting on
computers,” he says. “It’s a way away from
the boardroom or the office to get to know people
better.”
JAMIE HARTFORD
 
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