What is team building and who is it for?
Team building is an activity offered to businesses, groups of friends, families, or even classes of students experiencing relational difficulties that negatively impact the atmosphere, performance, organization, or well-being of each team member. The goal of such an activity is to allow participants to become aware of their personal attitude within a group in a context completely different from their usual environment.
The advantages of using an animal as a partner
The idea of using an animal is an asset because its presence will help lower barriers between participants and thus foster their collaboration. The animal will help the team relax and enjoy the workshop. It’s important to remember that the competitive spirit may be lessened since the animal is non-judgmental about our skills and knowledge, and no particular skill is needed to interact with it. This partner acts as a social facilitator and an emotional catalyst that could encourage some people to be more open to comments, discussions, and sharing personal experiences. It can be interesting to use a feathered or furry partner unfamiliar to most of the group, as all participants will be on equal footing regarding knowledge and how to interact with the selected animal. Examples include parrots or horses.
Session overview
First, it is necessary to analyze the team’s organizational context, understand its goals, the history of such a request, the group’s dynamics, and the relationships cultivated within it.
Next, the team works together on a common project. Let’s take a concrete activity as an example. In a group, participants may be asked to perform behavioral tests with parrots. They will have to handle birds without knowing their temperament, which is usually a destabilizing situation where they will need to rely on each other’s strengths to perform these tests. It is in this unusual context that each person can evaluate their performance, their role in the group, the quality of their interventions, their stress management, their listening skills, the prevailing atmosphere, etc.
After completing the activity, participants will then need to debrief, evaluate, and discuss these topics, and relate everything back to their work, family, or class context.
Another wonderful example of the benefits of animal presence!
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