Design a Right-Minded, Team-Building Workshop

Book excerpt: Team games, outdoor exercises, and social activities do not teach teammates how to overcome real-world work challenges. Right-Minded Teamwork (RMT) does. Your team’s path to RMT begins with a series of custom-designed, team-building workshops. In this book, you will find complete instruction on RMT’s 12 steps to design practical, team-building events that teammates actually want to attend. It is an honor to introduce you to RMT’s unique 12 step process in how to design a real-world workshop. This method has improved the lives and teams of thousands of people worldwide. This book and the online training program will teach you how to design practical, powerful workshops using Right-Minded Teamwork’s 12 Steps formula. The 12-step process includes three phases: 1. Contract: Designing the workshop (Steps 1-9) 2. Commence: Facilitating the workshop (Step 10) 3. Carry On: Keeping up the momentum (Steps 11-12) In the thirty-five years of my team-building career, I facilitated over 500 teams in seven countries. I worked with many of those teams for several years. I used this process every time. Even though they may not have even recognized I was applying these steps; every team leader appreciated the structure and thoroughness of this process. As a result, we consistently designed workshops that teammates could not wait to attend because they knew they were going to get real work done. And they did! In our book, Right-Minded Teamwork in Any Team: The Ultimate Team Building Method to Create a Team That Works as One, I shared the following RMT definition. Right-Minded Teamwork (RMT) is a business-oriented, psychological approach to team building where acceptance, forgiveness, and adjustment are teammate characteristics, and 100% customer satisfaction is the team’s result. When you apply the 12 steps in designing your workshops, you practically guarantee teammates will strengthen their ability to accept, forgive and adjust to challenging team situations. At the same time, they increase their likelihood of achieving 100% customer satisfaction. In this book, first, I will explain the art and science of facilitation and how one succeeds as a team-building facilitator. After that, I will briefly discuss the range of team-building exercise options available to you, ending in what is your best option - the real-world approach. And yes, Right-Minded Teamwork is a real-world approach. I’ll introduce you to the 5 Elements of RMT, the philosophy behind this powerful and continuous improvement method, along with a successful implementation plan. All of the above helps to establish the context for the rest of the book. After that, I’ll give you an overview of the 12 steps and then immediately discuss each step one at a time. In the final two sections, you will find a Glossary of Terms & Resources plus a robust collection of templates, checklists, and team exercises. You will also find four successful team implementation stories that would be well worth your study. And finally, welcome to Your New Role as an RMT Facilitator. Incorporating this design process into your team-building repertoire means you are now a Right-Minded Teamwork Facilitator someone who specializes in team transformations. Using RMT, you help to transform dysfunctional souls into healthy and functional teammates. You guide teammates to convert their mistakes into Right-Minded attitudes and behaviors. Whether you’re new to facilitation or continuing to build your team-building toolkit, add RMT to your practice today. There’s no reason not to: All parts of Right-Minded Teamwork, including these 12-Steps, are available for your use. There are no licensing or certification requirements. My Special Support Function: It took countless workshops, a 35-year career in active team-building facilitation, and the collective wisdom of so many teammates and team leaders to conceptualize and build Right-Minded Teamwork into the robust model it is today. Though I no longer facilitate actively, choosing to pass that torch on to the next generation of facilitators, I will always continue to promote Right-Minded Teamwork. I know that RMT and these 12-Steps are right for every team, everywhere, forever. If you use them, you will do your part to make the world a better place for everyone, everywhere, forever. Let’s get started now. Dan Hogan