TIIMbuilding ApS

20/02/2020

We did our first team building in Asia and we are mighty proud of it. 😀 @ Koh Lipe Thailand

22/11/2019

In his constant pursuit of new challenges, wakeskating pioneer Brian Grubb paid a visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina and headed for Olympic mountain Bjelasnica, 25 kilometer from Sarajevo.

His vision was to take wakeskating completely out of the summer environment and put it in winter conditions. And, to spice things up, to combine water and snow elements for the first time. His quest brought him to Studeni Potok (Icy Creek) on Bjelasnica plateau, near the village Umoljani.

What they've found there was a snowy wonderland amidst untouched mountain wilderness. Icy Creek lies at the bottom of a snow covered valley, winding its countless curves through the thick white blanket.

The locals also call the creek Dragon's Tail. Preparing combined snow/water course in heavy terrain and weather conditions was quite a task.

Pulled by one of the longest winch lines (1300ft), he carved his way through the deep snow at one moment, wakeskating in the creek at next, back to snow, then creek again – performing some of his favorite tricks on water and snow.

It´s a sort of mixture of wake and snowskating… something that lacks a name?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8br58Uep2Qo

Click here to learn more about this amazing adventure: http://www.redbull.com/en/adventure/stories/1331706492068/shredding-snow-like-you-ve-never-seen-before...

20/11/2019

How exactly incentive travel help?

Here are a few empirically proven, bottom-line improving, results of incentive travel activities:

1. Sending a person on a fully paid mini vacation creates loads of goodwill. Employees are strongly motivated to achieve their goals, thus earning incentive travel.
It also creates a sense of belonging and appreciation.

2. It is an easy way to create company loyalty. We are loyal to those that treat us well and show appreciation. We also feel ‘bound’ by the mentioned behavior.

3. Loyalty of course spills over into employee retention.
Onboarding, training and brining up to speed an employee, in a best-case scenario, takes minimum 6 months. Retaining an employee saves money, time, effort and preserves the team fabric.

4. A motivated, loyal, appreciated employee is 2 times more likely to give an extra mile when necessary. Appreciation often translates in increase innovativeness. Employees aim to perform higher when they feel appreciated. That in turn, translates in increased bottom-line.

5. Teams are made and strong bonds are forged on these travels. No amount of individual contribution can ever exceed team-level performance.

visit: www.tiimbuilding.com

11/11/2019

Check out this 2 min video.

Fantastic winter adventure in the mountains of Bosnia!

for free info on various winter tours and team building activities visit www.tiimbuilding.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiT3NcP7FAI

Adventure in Bosnia and Herzegovina! A visit to Umoljani, snowshoeing on Bjelašnica, Sutjeska National Park and Blidinje Lake. // S O C I A L M E D I A // WE...

08/11/2019

We agree on one thing: snowshoeing in Bosnia and Herzegovina is a breathtakingly beautiful adventure in a winter wonderland!

www.tiimbuilding.com

https://www.travelwriter.nl/?s=snowshoeing+bosnia

30/10/2019

WE VALUE SUSTAINABLE TOURISM: Our company is the result of life-long friendships, vast and life-changing travel experiences, a strong belief in the benefits of teambuilding and employee reward adventures, and a passion for the wonders of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
We run this own little of ours as a family-owned business. We all share a desire to make a difference for teams’ adventure everywhere, as well as for the local communities in our beautiful country. We think social responsibility and environmental protection into everything we do.
We only have one world and we simply want to make it a better place for our peers and for the generations to come.
Let’s share the beauty of Bosnia and Herzegovina together.
Visit www.tiimbuilding.com

21/10/2019

Another great cycling tour in the rich autumn colours on the Bosnian mountains.

Endnu en fantastisk cykeltur i de rige efterårfarver på de bosniske bjerge.

18/10/2019

‘Cut the Bullsh*t’ Team-Building Lessons
• Celebrate success, even small success. This leads to strong teams.
• Show that you are a team player by asserting that you are the alpha dog, the leader, and then demand that everyone is treated equally and that no disputes are allowed to linger.
• Explain clearly and often where you want the team to go, what you want to achieve, and what lines people are not to cross.
• Involve everyone in the discussions but make it clear that you are the final decision-maker. This is not a democracy, after all.
• Never lose touch with the team, and always make sure members know you support them.
• Set mission-impossible goals. They stress the team in order to develop the team.
• Listen to your team. If they get the attention of your ears and brain, they know they are important and want to put even more effort into reaching common goals.
• Discuss problems but let the team members solve them. That empowers them.
• Thank them.
• Criticize them.
• Celebrate failures. It is the learning and boldness that matters. Without them, there is no team development.
• Hence, let them be bold.

Please read https://lnkd.in/g7vzehb

Lessons learned from Olympic coaches, the military and more.

11/10/2019

Is leader’s integrity really that important?

It is a bit ironic how we try to ‘invent’ new leadership techniques and methodologies over and again, never once looking back at the timeless wisdom gathered throughout history.

Yes, we do live in a history-less times. We don’t learn from the past. We believe it has nothing to offer. We know the best.

Not surprisingly, we are doomed to keep inventing the same all the time.

So, let’s be ‘smart’ for a moment and see what some of the biggest thinkers of all times say on integrity and leadership.

Plato says: “There is nothing so delightful as the hearing, or the speaking of truth. For this reason, there is no conversation so agreeable as that of the man of integrity, who hears without any intention to betray, and speaks without any intention to deceive.”

Reading the above, it is easy to assume that inventing something new is easier that living up to those standards.

But is it really?

02/10/2019

How to make a team?

Here are a few time-proven tips how to make a team;

• Celebrate successes, even small successes.

• Treat everyone equally and then demand that everyone treat each other equally.

• Do not allow disputes to linger.

• Explain clearly and often where you want the team to go, what you want to achieve, and what lines people are not to cross.

• Involve everyone in the discussions and try to reach decisions by consensus. If not possible, make it clear that you are the final decision-maker.

• Make sure team members know you support them.

• Set BHAGs (big hairy audacious goals). They challenge and invigorate the team. Common hard goals foster ‘troops huddling’.

• Listen to your team. Give them your full attention; make them know they are important.

• Discuss problems but let the team members solve them. That empowers them.

• Thank them.

• Criticize them.

• Don’t shy away from failures. It is the learning and audacity that matters.

• Be a person of highest integrity. Nothing motivates like high integrity.

25/09/2019

If bonuses don’t work, what about purpose?

According to Oxford University and Ernest and Young, there was a 5-fold increase of public interest in ‘purpose’ literature from 1995 to 2016.

You know, the ‘why’ question so popularized in the last 10 years.

It is a such a ubiquitous proposition that it seems like a force of nature.

But has it really done much for our motivation (hint, check our post from 18/8)?

No, it hasn’t really.

Why is this narrative then so often used?

Because it is sexy, simple and uses Apple as an example. And that is in fact where all the trouble starts. Apple is simply to special to use as a case study for such a generalized concept.

A dairy producer will not make its milk more appealing by subscribing to ‘why’. A diabetes medicine producer, cleaning company, food stall will not improve their products either.

Bottom line is, it wouldn’t be credible to the workers. It would fail to motivate.

However, purpose does matter. But not in a way it is presented today.

We believe that it is a private issue and the best way to influence it is to have leaders with high level of integrity.

That matters and it motivates as well.

19/09/2019

Could you be a Masterchef?

One of our favorite winter team building exercises is called Masterchef.

It playfully combines teamwork, innovation, creativity, competition and fun.

We always feel richer after a day with this workshop. It shows how high the limits of human spirit can go. And how teams come together under right circumstances.

Have a look for yourself and tell us what you think?

13/09/2019

Non-cash rewards....

Let us throw a bone and start with a phenomenal Dan Pink’s talk as depicted by RSA Animate. https://lnkd.in/ge-vJtA

We guess it is even harder now disagreeing with previously posted claim that ‘bonuses don’t drive behavior unless they are dealing with repetitive, time limited and easily quantifiable tasks.’
We fully share believe that mastery and self-direction play pivotal role in employee motivation.
On the purpose drive, we divert a bit. Purpose is of course important, but not as important as Simon Sinek and all other leadership gurus claims to be.
Why do we say so?
Because for employees, companies’ purpose is often not credible. It has very little to do with the realities of their job. What can be an overarching purpose for a Copenhagen cleaning company that has 10 employees, besides doing its job well?

They are not in a business of changing the world. Insisting on a ‘larger purpose’ for such a company would only jeopardize leadership integrity. And that is something no motivational effort can succeed without.

Let’s be frank, vast majority of companies our there are in business of delivering decent goods and services. They don’t attempt to change the world.

So, stop asking your employees to do so. It could only backfire.

This lively RSA Animate, adapted from Dan Pink's talk at the RSA, illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace....

04/09/2019

Do bonuses work?

As ‘controversial’ as it sounds, it is remarkably well established that bonuses don’t drive behavior unless they are dealing with repetitive, time limited and easily quantifiable tasks.
Most of the jobs today are all but repetitive and easily quantifiable.
Why do we still keep this relic of industrial times?

Partially because we are creatures of habits prone to letting historical inertia work its magic.
But more importantly, we haven’t found a better way yet.
Or so it seems.

Some very famous voices suggest ’golden circle’ – purpose driven approach. Others believe in using AI to quantify every step we make, thus using more of the same.

At Tiimbuilding, we believe in collaboration, intrinsic motivators and good work environment.

But more about that, in our next installment.

What do you believe motivates behavior?

29/08/2019

Individual star performer Vs effective team?

Empirical data shows that any team of average performers with strong cohesive relationship will, in the long run, outperform any single outstanding individual.

If you considering your current tasks and projects, whom would you like to have on your side? That one single extraordinary person or a team of interconnected but less ‘shinning’ individuals?

While an outstanding individual might be able to provide better results on short-term or add-hock basis, consistency of such performance will always be an issue.
Investing in the team building efforts or relying on that single, extraordinary person shouldn’t be an issue.

And yet, ever so often, it is.

Why do you think that is the case?
Whom do you prefer, an individual star performer or an average performing, good team player?

Here is a quite an interesting article on the topic: https://lnkd.in/dZaxzW4

7 Core components of the psychology of teamwork. So what does it take to build an effective team? According to the TESI (Team Emotional and Social Intelligence) Model there are 7 skills that will contribute to effective team functioning...

21/08/2019

Where is Employee Engagement going?

Google the term “Employment Engagement” and you will find numerous definitions: “giving the best by employees”, “commitment to the organizational goals and values”, “motivation”, “well-being”.

What is this telling us? Do we need to pamper employees, so they are committed, motivated and giving their best or is it something else?

No, we don’t, but we need to create the conditions in which employees can and are willing to share most of their capabilities and potential.

We share Forbes’ view that following conditions are a must for higher Employee Engagement anno 2019:
1 – Non-monetary benefits and perks have become increasingly important
2 – Agile work environments are becoming increasingly popular
3 – Employees want to make a difference and expect more corporate social responsibility
4 – Organizational culture is king

We may not have direct influence on the first 3 on the list.

But we sure know quite a bit on the topic 4.
(https://lnkd.in/eCbbPpf)

With historically low unemployment levels, the days of hiring employees who are excited to just “have a job” may be a vestige of the past, and motivating and retaining the best talent has become as challenging today as it is important.

14/08/2019

Sometimes, you just have to let the music touch your soul.
Sarajevo Film Festival is just around the corner and it will bring a lot of energy to this city.
TIIMbuilding

14/08/2019

Data is out; employee engagement is abysmal.

About 70% of Americans are disengaged at work (Gallup)

https://www.gallup.com/workplace/236282/american-workplace-changing-dizzying-pace.aspx

What does it mean?
Bluntly, many employees feel indifferent about their jobs.
“The report reveals an unsettling pattern in the U.S. workplace, one that leaders need to respond to if they want to get the most out of their workforce. The one thing leaders cannot do is nothing. They cannot wait for trends to pass them by, and they cannot wait for millennials to get older and start behaving like baby boomers. That won't happen. This workforce isn't going to acclimate to the status quo.”

The world has changed.

Likes of Google and Salesforce have recognized it and lead the way.

They understood the need to build teams out of disparate expectations and seem to have hit the cord.

Others can’t seem to accept the shift. They are left with employees that are not engaged and even actively disengaged. Costs of their inaction are staggering.

Where are you in this picture?

Changes affecting organizations are coming relentlessly. They're overlapping and colliding in ways they haven't before.

07/08/2019

The best leaders have known it for ages; teams are made and they are more than simple joint effort to deliver team tasks.

What was never an issue; how was always a mind boggling exercise.

Quite often, team building efforts failed since they reminded workers too much of the office environment or even worse, school classroom.

You cannot teach the team. You build it.

And coming back to those that got it early, what they did was a combination of informal and fun with a whisk of reward.

Finally, science is backing early movers.

Check this great article in Harvard Business Review.
https://lnkd.in/bDfKqPD

31/07/2019

To answer previously posed question, we need to take a step back into history of corporations and take a good look at the decision to decouple individual responsibility from corporate action.
Hiding behind non-human legal entities we unleashed the worst in human behavior. We ‘optimized’ and ‘maximized’ short-term profit by any means necessary. And they were not pretty; stability and loyalty suffered greatly.
Peeking into the empirically vast treasure chest of the ‘sister’ science of psychology we can easily recognize that humans behind legal entities are just that, human. They treasure basic human values too.
Loyalty and stability seem to rank very high.
How do we deal with the mess that we made?
Stay tuned.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-leaders-can-manage-org-stability-inspire-loyalty-crystal-kadakia/

Millennials have a bad rap for being an entitled, job-hopping generation. Is it possible that companies are behaving as though they are entitled to loyalty they no longer deserve – from any generation? Inspired by an article written by Dr.

24/07/2019

It is rather clear that all of us agree that times have changed.
It is a different world from 20 years ago.

It is also interesting that views on what makes an exceptional employer are quite similar across the board.

We believe that employers should be inspiring, offering multiple career opportunities, provide purpose, are fair, and surprisingly, are loyal and stable.
The surprise lies in the fact that we have worked hard for many decades to make work transactional/freelance. Loyalty and stability were almost shunned.
What does that tell us?

Do you think about venturing and starting a freelance career? Before you launch a freelance business, consider these drawbacks to self-employment.

19/07/2019

Nature can be so beautiful.
Tiimbuilding

21/06/2019

Watching a sunset from the Vranica Mountain is absolutely breathtaking.
Tiimbuilding

20/06/2019

20/06/2019

06/06/2019

High above the clouds on mountain Vranica.
TIIMbuilding

20/05/2019

The wonderful Old Bridge in Mostar looks looks incredible and has quite a history to tell.
Tiimbuilding

30/04/2019

The latest bridge over the Miljacka River. The modern design of beautiful Festina Lente perfectly blends in.
Tiimbuilding