Dilemma
It is time again for the annual group outing. Very cozy, a whole day, sometimes even a weekend with colleagues on the road. And good for the group feeling. But what if the activities do not fit completely in your street? If you don’t feel like taking miles on a barefoot path, to work in sweat and mud during polders sports, or to first cycle for miles before you reach the hotel?
Can you make it to skip the outing? Or to come up with a nice fresh and fruity day at the final drink, the dinner, the party – but to skip the exhausting group activity in advance?
Yourself or the group
You can not only give one correct answer to this question, says Yvonne Burger reassuring. She is a board and organization consultant and founder of the Center for Executive Coaching at the VU University in Amsterdam. Participating or not, it remains your own choice.
But! “If you do not go along or do not participate, you will deny yourself the chance of team building.”
And team building, that is useful. This is apparent from Research from the University of Central Florida and the American Army Research Institute from 2009. Burger: “It’s good for the mutual relationships, good for the work performance, good for the team spirit and the group feeling.”
Of course you can have a good reason not to participate in a certain part of the group outing, says Burger, such as a disease or disability. ” No sense ‘will not be considered good reason for everyone. This is about the question: do you go for autonomy or for the group feeling? If you do not participate in everything because you don’t feel like it, you also say that you, or’ own sentence ‘, find yourself more important than the group. ”
This way you not only put yourself outside the group, but also – perhaps unconsciously and unintentionally – the group above. “If it happens once and you do it lightly about it yourself, the group will still forgive you. If you do it more often, you will probably not be thanked.”
Friction and Sabotage
If you have doubts whether it is permitted to (partly) not participate in the team outing, then something went wrong with the organization, organizes the organization coach and leadership expert Mieke van der Kroon. The organizers would do well to make it clear in advance what the purpose of the outing is, she thinks. Is it about fun or team building? Is it important that you participate in everything, or can you also choose your own interpretation?
“If that context is missing, people themselves will fill in what the norm is,” she says. “The one does not find it all that important, while the other does not see participating as a rejection of the group. If that is not pronounced, then that will lead to friction.”
This friction always recognizes the process expert and trainer Frank Weijers immediately, he says. “In every group in which people do not express themselves, sabotage behavior is created. Think of gossip, venomous jokes or cynical comments.”
Suppose you arrive at the party while you have skipped the sports activity. Then there will be colleagues who will express themselves in this way, WEIJERS warns. If nobody enters into the conversation, an initially trivial situation can result in a much larger conflict.
How do you avoid this? Not by then going to walk that blotevoetpad. By clearly communicating with the group. “Call the group together before the outing takes place, say that you would like to go along but do not want to participate. And ask how that is for the group.”
It sounds so simple, says Weijers, but you just pronounce and listen to each other, we often find the most difficult thing there is.
A sacrifice
It is a misconception that everyone in the group must agree, says Weijers. The minority voice is essential for group dynamics. So you don’t want to cycle, don’t run, don’t polder sports? You pronounce, otherwise you and the group are short.
“If you pronounce yourself, there may seem to have many more people the same preference. Who knows, the entire sports element will be deleted.” And then the entire team can be done in the future Linea Recta on the bitterballen.
No matter how the group responds during such an open conversation, you make the decision yourself. And then it is also up to the group whether they find your decision acceptable. In the end, according to Weijers, it comes down to this: “Be yourself and adjust.”
After all, sometimes you don’t mind doing something for the group at all. Or is your own preference so important that you are not willing to make a sacrifice?
Yvonne Burger has another tip: “Just go to the organization yourself next time.”
So
Whether you are struggling in the mud or would rather cycle directly to the drink: the staff outing is never neutral. Participating or dropping out always says something. The trick is being honest: to yourself and to the group. Pronounce you, wear your choice, and accept that it can evoke resistance. In the end it is not about polders sports together, but about the conversation about it. That brings a group really closer together.