Once a month the four of us on my team at work spend the whole day together on Friday away from our desks. We may still be on the premises somewhere, but at least we’re away from our desk phones and the routine interruptions that tend to sprinkle the day with good and bad flavors. During these team meetings we may have a list of specific things we want to discuss or accomplish, but we don’t always have the whole day planned, either. There is plenty of time for flexibility and fun.
From our time together yesterday, there are a few things that stand out to me that were not planned and that were just fun, contributing more to being a team than all the work discussion ever could. For example, just picking a place on the fly to go to lunch together, trying something new and enjoying the conversation around an awesome Smashburger. Of course, being the Social Media team, we had to take and upload photos of our meals and each other.
There was also the suggestion from Chuck that we join him and his wife in the 5k Muddy Fanatic run May 19. That sounded pretty cool, so we all signed up to run it together as a team. I have some training to do now.
And then there were just the laughs, the jabs at each other, and posting on Chuck’s Facebook wall as him when he left the room with his laptop unlocked.
I promise we got some things accomplished on the work agenda as well, but the best parts were just hanging out together and continuing to grow interpersonally as a team, especially since we’ve been together less than two months.
Our company didn’t hire any of us to be friends, to run races together, to be silly or to eat Smashburgers. But those things sure do help if we’re going to spend 40-50 hours per week together – perhaps more time awake than we spend with spouse or family.
I’m thankful for an awesome team – Lewis, Patti and Chuck – and I look forward to many such times together in the future.
Leap year lesson #94 is Work teams bond by having fun together.
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