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STRICTLY COME TEAM BUILDING

Written by: Alan Hosking

Article Overview: Tried the rocks and ropes approach to getting people to work together? Now dance your way to new levels of corporate teamwork with Biodanza. A teambuilding programme based on dance has become the latest hot property in getting everybody from the CEO to the tea lady to work for the greater good of the company.

STRICTLY COME TEAM BUILDING

Competing head‑on with such activities as rock climbing and bundu bashing, Biodanza was developed by a Chilean anthropologist and psychologist, Rolando Toro over 40 years ago and has now been introduced into the South African market by Christos Daskalakos, a trained architect and part‑time lecturer at Wits University.


It has long been evident to Daskalakos that certain team‑building exercises are not only dangerous but achieve exactly the opposite to what they set out to do – building a team spirit.


Many physical activities such as trekking, rock climbing and abseiling require a relatively high degree of fitness, which automatically excludes people who are ordinarily couch potatoes.


In addition to creating an uneven platform that discriminating against those of us who are unfit or who are afraid of heights, these methodologies create a highly competitive environment where there are always winners and losers. What Biodanza does is allow people to express themselves via the medium of freeform dance to bond together as a single unit.
Many untested methods of team building exist in South Africa, many of them with untrained trainers. The majority of them don’t deliver and there is no scientific research to confirm their claimed outcomes.


In contrast, at least two PhD dissertations had been done on the Biodanza system confirming the system’s stated outcome.


A major problem in the corporate world is that the choice of team building provider is often left to relatively junior members of staff when if fact the CE should be involved in the decision. Among the many advantages the system has over other methods of team building we have used in the past is the fact that even individuals who cannot understand English can fully participate because it is all about movement with very little verbal interaction.


Currently one of South Africa’s largest banks makes use of the programme, which groups together dance, music and imagery, once a year to ensure that various departments within the organisation work together for the common good.


A problem often ignored by corporates is that while competition is in and of itself not a bad thing in the corporate environment, everybody has to know what the big goal is and that is the welfare and the prosperity of the company.


One company recently completed a programme where previous team building exercises had created competition between various branches of the company to the point where everybody was pulling in a different direction. The design and manufacturing departments were pitted against the sales department which increasingly wanted more and more products to sell despite the fact that the other two departments had to go through a set cycle to make sure that every new product met the high standards set for it.


It was discovered afterwards that traditionally the sales teams won every competition set for it in other team building programmes and had little or no understanding of what it meant for the company to co-operate as a single unit.


There had to be a clear understanding in companies that team building meant more than a fun day out of the office.


It is essential that executives who make the decision as to which team building programme they are planning to implement are clear on the goals they want to achieve. If they want to form strong bonds between individuals and departments that will lead to unimpeded communications then Biodanza is certainly our programme of choice.


Allowing individuals of all degrees of fitness and with a variety of phobias such as fear of heights to participate in a non‑threatening manner, Biodanza creates a sense of well‑being that continues long after the exercises have ended.


Biodanza exercises are based on basic human movement that any average able‑bodied person can undertake. It results in a tangible sense of individual achievement when the person moves beyond his or her established and natural body language and movement patterns.
At the group level, the two positive outcomes include an increase in the level and quality of communication between groups. It also improves team dynamics based on better understanding and co-operation.



Auguste “Gusti” Coetzer is a senior partner with executive recruitment firm Leaders Unlimited Korn/Ferry International (www.leadersunlimited.co.za).

This article was published in the January Issue of HR Future Magazine 2007 (www.hrfuture.net)

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