Each year there is the favorite storyline in the business section announcing the lost productivity in business during March Madness. For those who do not know, March Madness refers to the NCAA Basketball Tournaments for men and women that begin each year in March. There is a large group of teams that play each other through a defined bracket toward the ultimate Championship Game. The main draw is the NCAA Division 1 Basketball Tournament. There are other tournaments for Division 2 teams, Division 3 teams, and invitational’s such as the NIT.
There are official studies conducted by real companies that go into great detail describing how their studies support their numbers of lost productivity in business. The numbers are staggering as some studies reflect $100 million to $200 million in lost productivity.
The standard comeback is, “Seriously, you don’t think your employees and workforce are on the internet at work for personal use anyway?” Let’s not explore this discussion. A leader of a company will set the tone and the culture of the work environment.
The larger the workforce is, the more difficult it becomes to place your leadership finger print across the organization. As part of normal business practice, a variety of workshops and seminars may be conducted to bring your teams together to work better with each other. Keynote speakers are brought in to inspire and motivate your employees at all levels of the organization. Why not take advantage of the opportunity where so many people are involved in selecting and predicting the winners in the tournament brackets?
Why not create an environment where this interest among many people in your workforce can be utilized to teach team building and bonding?
Rather than a three day retreat, or a team building workshop offsite, you might create bonding and team building experiences through game viewing lunches or group bracket selection parties. Have speakers around connecting the dots so the teaching moment is not lost. If this is a way of life, why not embrace and work with the flow of energy devoted to this activity? Why not help create an environment and a culture which people look forward to being a part of every single day?
Yes, your dissenting voices are being heard, “But we don’t all care about this nonsense! It is a sport. It’s just basketball! When are you, people going to grow up?”
In my next article the topic will be about creating support groups within your organization. So don’t worry…I’ve got you covered.
Are you interested in inspiring and motivating your employees and workforce? Are you ready to create the type of culture where people want to show up and give their best every day? Contact Mitch Tublin today, www.thementorguy.com.
Hi MItch,
I love how you creatively infuse group personal interests into team-building.
Very clever.
Write on!~
Lisa Manyon
Lisa,
We have to be respectful of the group interests while still creating the culture and team dynamics for success in our business.
Mitch