Team Building Events
All events are custom designed and priced accordingly. Please inquire for more details about scheduling an event. Use your own inside or outside experts or take advantage of the world class consultants we work with who can design a program specifically for what you wish to accomplish, not just during the event but with long-term follow up options.
There are many reasons why companies use team building activities including improving communication, boosting morale, inspiring motivation, creating ice breakers to help employees get to know each other better, learning effective strategies, improving productivity, becoming more mindful of one’s strengths and weaknesses ... the list goes on. They can also help with new employee acquisition and retaining existing employees as well as creating a bonding opportunity with prospective clients and rewarding existing ones to promote loyalty.
Team building activities can be used by any organization, large or small, to promote better teamwork and, as most owners and managers know, great teamwork is one of the key factors associated with an organization’s success.
Shoreline Summit Adventures helps groups, organizations and companies who want to provide team building experiences to focus on one or all of the four types of team building activities through participation in our adventures. These activities include:
Communication Activities
Problem Solving and/or Decision Making Activities
Adaptability and/or Planning Activities
Trust Building Activities
Participants engage in a variety of outdoor adventure various activities that are both fun and challenging. Perhaps, more importantly, they also can help improve employee performance and productivity at the office or in the organization.
More about Team Building
Team building is a philosophy of job design in which employees are viewed as members of interdependent teams instead of as individual workers. Team building can range from simple bonding exercises to complex simulations and multi-day team building retreats. These retreats can be designed to develop a team including group assessment and group-dynamic games, and fulfill a variety of other purposes. Team building is not to be confused with “team recreation” which consists of activities for teams that are strictly recreational. It can also be seen in day-to-day operations of an organization and team dynamic can be improved through successful leadership.
Team building is said to have benefits of self-development, positive communication, leadership skills and the ability to work closely together as a team to solve problems. Team building focuses on four methods that affect the unit: 1) role clarification; 2) interpersonal relationship management; 3) goal setting; and 4) problem solving.
Work environments tend to focus on individuals and personal goals, with reward and recognition singling out the achievements of individual employees whereas team building focuses on the group and, additionally, refer to the process of selecting or creating a new team.
Team Dynamic
When assembling a team it is very important to consider the overall dynamic of the team. Five dynamics are fundamental to team success:
Team Members: Successful teams are made up of a collection of effective individuals. These are people who are experienced, have problem solving ability, are open to addressing the problem, and are action oriented.
Team Relationships: For a team to be successful the members of the team must be able to give and receive feedback.
Team Problem Solving: An effective team depends on how focused and clear the goal of the team is. A relaxed, comfortable and accepting environment and finally, open and honest communication are required.
Team Leadership: Effective team leadership depends on leadership competencies. A competent leader is: focused on the goal, ensures a collaborative climate, builds confidence of team members, sets priorities, demonstrates sufficient “know-how” and manages performance through feedback.
Organizational Environment: The climate and culture of the organization must be conductive to team behavior. Competitiveness should be discouraged and collaboration should be encouraged - this will minimize conflict and discord among team members.
Goals
The overall goals of team building are to increase the teams understanding of team dynamics and improve how the team works together. Unlike working as a group, working as a team incorporates group accountability rather than individual accountability and results in a collective work product.
At Shoreline Summit Adventures, we structure activities to encourage the team approach to working on a project. Advantages of this approach include:
Increased flexibility in skills and abilities
More productive than work groups with individual mindset
More beneficial in times of organizational change
Encourage both individual and team development and improvement
Focuses on group goals to accomplish more beneficial tasks
Improved range of team building objectives such as collaboration, communication and increased creative or flexible thinking
Leadership Roles
Successful team leaders frequently have six of the same leadership abilities:
Creates goal-oriented to keep the team on track
Promotes a safe environment where members can openly discuss issues
Builds confidence amongst members by building and maintaining trust and offering the members responsibilities
Is technically competent in matters relating to team tasks and goals
Sets a manageable list of priorities for the team to keep members focused
Offers clear performance expectations by recognizing and rewarding excellent performance while respectfully providing feedback to others.
Eight effective strategies Shoreline Summit Adventures helps leaders practice to enhance team building include:
Establish clear and inspiring team goals
Maintain a results-oriented team structure
Assemble competent team members
Strive for unified commitment
Provide a collaborative climate
Encourage standards of excellence
Offer external support and recognition
Apply principled leadership
Types of Exercises
Shoreline Summit Adventures provides opportunities to focus on the above mentioned four primary types of team building activities including communication, problem solving, adaptability/problem solving and trust building. Team building can range from simple social activities from encouraging team members to spend time together to team development activities designed to help individuals discover how they approach a problem, how the team works together and discover better methods of communication. Team interaction involves “soft” interpersonal skills including communication, negotiation, leadership and motivation in contrast to technical skills directly involved with the job at hand. Depending on the type of team building, the tasks can encourage or specifically teach interpersonal team skills to increase team performance. The purpose of team building exercises is to assist teams in becoming cohesive units of individuals that can effectively work together to complete tasks. Examples of each of the four types of team building activities are listed, below.
1. Communication Exercise
This type of team building exercise is exactly what it sounds like. Communications exercises are problem solving activities that are geared towards improving communication skills. The issues teams encounter in these exercises are solved by communicating effectively with each other. The goal is to create an activity which highlights the importance of good communication in team performance and/or potential problems with communication.
2. Problem-Solving/Decision-Making Exercise
Problem-solving/decision-making exercises focus specifically on groups working together to solve difficult problems or make complex decisions. These exercises are some of the most common as they appear to have the most direct link to what employers want their teams to be able to do. The goal is to give team a problem in which the solution is not easily apparent or requires the team to come up with a creative solution.
3. Planning/Adaptability Exercise
These exercises focus on aspects of planning and being adaptable to change. These are important things for teams to be able to do when they are assigned complex tasks or decisions. The goal is to show the importance of planning before implementing a solution.
4. Trust Exercise
A trust exercise involves engaging team members in a way that will induce trust between them. They are sometimes difficult exercises to implement as there are varying degrees of trust between individuals and varying degrees of individual comfort trusting others in general. The goal is to create trust between team members. These exercises can be effective for many teams but none are a one-size-fits-all solution.
Team Building Assessment and Feedback
In the organizational development context, a team may embark on a process of self-assessment to gauge its effectiveness and improve its performance. To assess itself, a team seeks feedback from group members to find out both its current strengths and weakness. Participating in adventures offered through Shoreline Summit Adventures provides one way to improve team performance by using feedback from the team assessment can be used to identify gaps between the desired goal and current position with team members engaging in strategy sessions designed to close the gap between the two.
Day-Tripper Channel Islands Motor Charter Experience
Crossing the Santa Barbara Channel to Santa Cruz Island takes more than an hour with a stop along the way for a peak (inside!) the second longest sea cave in the world. Continue down the coast of Santa Cruz Island and drop anchor in a remote bay for lunch and a swim before your return back to the mainland just in time for dinner. The contemporary interiors are calming and comfortable. You will think you were transported to the South Coast of France or the Amalfi Coast of Italy for a picnic tour on a European-style motor yacht.
Multi-Day Channel Islands Motor Charter Experience
Explore one island by land and sea or visit several of the Channel Islands.
Day-Tripper Sailing Charter Experience
Due to the slower speeds when sailing, day trips are generally along the coast of Santa Barbara with opportunities to anchor for lunch and participate in water activities like swimming, kayaking and paddleboarding.
Multi-Day Channel Islands Sailing Charter Experience
Crossing the Santa Barbara Channel to Santa Cruz Island takes 4-7 hours depending on wind, sea conditions and island(s) to be visited. Explore one island by land and sea or visit several of the Channel Islands.
About the Captains
All captains are United States Coast Guard licensed with years of experience cruising the Santa Barbara Coast and Channel Islands as well as, in many cases, all over the world.
Azure seas
For all your private events and special occasions, step aboard the stylish 73-foot yacht, Azure Seas and experience the ultimate in Santa Barbara private cruises. With amazing views from any location on this luxury yacht, you and your guests are sure to have a memorable time.
Available for 2, 4 or 6 Hours for Coastal Santa Barbara Cruising