Team Building or Incentive?

Team Building and Incentive: two ideas that get confused

Training and incentive activities inside companies are more and more common. There’s still a fair amount of confusion, though, even about the most important ideas. That’s why this piece takes on the subject of team building versus incentive: what team building means, what an incentive means, how the two relate, when they meet and when they have to be kept apart.

We’ve already given several pages to explaining what team building is, telling you how to organise a team building and offering some ideas for corporate team building. So we won’t go over that ground again here, beyond a few preliminaries.

Team Building: what is it?

Team building means the set of activities run with groups of employees to improve the dynamics of communication and teamwork. The most recent tendency in team building is to use the instruments of what’s called experiential training. Where traditional classroom training teaches through words, experiential training teaches through real situations the participants live through.

What kind of situations does experiential training create? Every kind: from cooking to survival techniques in the desert, from making a painting to a treasure hunt through the streets of a city. What they have in common is that they take the team out of the usual office routine. That makes it possible to check, exercise and improve communication, problem solving and the way the group works together.

Outside the office walls people are more inclined to relax and to get involved, and so they discover new characteristics and abilities in themselves and in their colleagues.

Incentive: what is it?

The word incentive usually sits next to the word trip: incentive travel, incentive tour, incentive trip are the most frequent expressions. It’s a reward trip that takes the participants to a fine destination for recreational activities, meetings and training. The purpose of an incentive programme is to create a unique and exclusive experience that will stay in the memory and strengthen the emotional bond with the company.

A corporate reward trip can be reserved for:

• senior managers, whom the company wants to keep through a high-end incentive;
• salespeople being rewarded for having reached the targets the company set;
• employees among whom the company is looking for candidates for a promotion, and whom it wants to motivate to produce more;
• the most important clients, to give them a positive picture of the company and of future collaboration, present new products or services, show them where things are made, and build personal relationships alongside the working ones.

Travel agencies and team building companies in the Gulf deal constantly with incentive groups arriving from abroad. Dubai and Abu Dhabi are among the most chosen destinations in the world for an incentive trip, and the reasons are easy to list: the flights, the hotels, the desert an hour from the airport, and a winter that lets you spend a whole day outdoors while half the world can’t.

That’s why this piece talks about hosting visitors more than about accompanying local groups abroad; nothing stops you, though, from organising a trip out of the region for a Gulf group along exactly the same lines.

Incentive trip: which activities to propose?

Which activities can be part of a corporate incentive trip? In choosing, you have to allow for the fact that many participants will bring a partner or another member of the family. The purpose of building loyalty is pursued through shared experiences that leave pleasant memories. A company hopes to find more willingness later, including towards sacrifices of free time, in somebody who was rewarded with an experience they shared with their partner.

The programme has to be organised so that it’s interesting for everyone, keeps people occupied, and still leaves room for rest and above all for people to talk to each other.

Activities tied to the company

An incentive trip often has an official part. It might be:

• A meeting or a convention
• A visit to the company’s own spaces or to a production site.

Why run a team building during a corporate meeting?

In a treasure hunt designed as a team building the attention goes on problem solving, on effective interaction inside the team and on the contest between teams. In an incentive, the play and the culture of the place carry far more weight.

Discovering the city

An incentive programme lets the participants discover the city they’re visiting through cultural activities, and through rare and exclusive experiences. The point is to make the most of the destination by showing the best of it, which in turn reflects well on the company. What can you propose?

The classic visits to the main landmarks, and also more original occasions. A hunt for the story of a fort on the coast, an adventure among the dunes at sunset, an interactive iPad game through the alleys of the old quarter and along the Creek, a pirate treasure hunt on an island: those are only some of the things that can be built.

The best known museums of the city, and also the more particular or thematic exhibitions. Genuinely exclusive experiences can be arranged. An example? Dinner at a museum: some venues can host a gala dinner in an unusual and refined setting, in the middle of the collection. And think what a murder mystery dinner becomes when it’s set among the exhibits.

An incentive programme obviously includes lunches and dinners in fine restaurants. They can be enriched with actors, as in a murder mystery dinner, or with a cooking class or a show cooking. Participants, especially the ones arriving from abroad, are delighted to discover the region’s culinary traditions, and Italian ones, in a real professional kitchen.

Living an adventure

The Emirates aren’t only cities. There’s the desert, the Hajar mountains, the wadis, the islands and the whole length of the coast. All of that can be used to create memorable experiences for the guests of an incentive. Depending on the season, the destination and the budget you choose between a great many options. What they have in common is that they’re set in nature rather than (only) in a city.

In winter a day among the dunes, in the cooler months a walk through a wadi with the mountains on both sides. For the more adventurous and physically active groups, it gets enriched with a Survival-style adventure. Even here, though, the difference from a Survival Training run as a team building is considerable. Where the training version has demanding timed challenges in a contest between teams, with plenty of adrenaline, the incentive version is an experience of discovery and curiosity. Participants get taught the survival techniques and in some cases get to try them, all in a relaxed and playful setting.

The coast is an inexhaustible source of good views and exciting proposals. An unforgettable adventure is a trip under sail, which can also be run as a regatta, meaning a proper race between rival crews, on a yacht or on a traditional dhow.

The beach venues have a great deal of charm too, though you have to allow for how busy they get in the high season and choose either an exclusive destination or a quieter time. Here too a sailing regatta works, and so does a themed treasure hunt built on the stories of the old pearl divers.

Cultural experiences

The region offers plenty to people who prefer a cultural trip to one spent outdoors. The choice of activity depends on the participants’ interests, the average age and the make-up of the group. For everybody, though, there’s a range of experiences worth having. You can plan:

Taking an incentive group to an opera or a ballet at Dubai Opera is a luxury that leaves a mark. The place suits more than refined lovers of culture: it suits anyone who wants an exclusive evening. An extra touch of class? Dinner at the theatre.

An evening of classical music or a rock concert, depending on what the participants like (which the organiser of the trip has to find out in advance). The perfect venue? One of the arenas in Dubai or on Yas Island. Just remember to buy the tickets well ahead.

The region is also famous for sport. Many participants will be delighted by a Grand Prix weekend at Yas Marina, a cricket match under the lights at the Dubai International Stadium, or a round on one of the championship golf courses. The trip can be planned around a fixture that’s worth being there for.

Free time: room for shopping