FACULTY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Annika Antti-Roiko

Riikka Forsman

Kirsi-Marja Harri

Sofia Husso

Piia Kellokumpu

Outi Kenttä

Katja Maijanen

Veli-Matti Marttila

Elina Määttä

Anneli Rinta-Paavola

Tuure Väyrynen

Team building

in Socializing Friday networking events

Course: Team Building

Course Number: 721560S

Lecturer: John Meewella

Timing: Autumn 2011

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This report is a team assignment for Team Building course. The subject of the report

is team building in Socializing Friday networking events.

The report explores the ways how Socializing Friday events can be developed further

in order to strengthen inter-organizational team building possibilities in them. Factors

that impact possibilities for effective team building are identified through the event

life cycle and practical proposals for improvement are given. Strengthening the event

itself helps SocFri to foster growth, expedite development and also secure continuity

and expansion.

The networking can start already before the event. The social media can be used for

this purpose by offering the starting point for upcoming face-to-face discussion. The

social media can support team building activities also after the event by supporting

discussions as well collecting stories and feedback. It can be a prime way of

advertising the event. In the event the starting point would be good in order to lower

the barrier for interaction. It would also give some structure to the event. Small-scale

activities or tasks would also help people in getting to know each other. Even though

the guests are responsible for actions (connecting with other guests) during the event,

SocFri can make it easier for them. After the event the discussions can continue in

the social media. Feedback is analyzed and reflected. A thank you note can be sent

with conclusions and next steps.

CONTENTS

Executive summary

1 INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................1

2 PROCESS OF ORGANIZING THE NETWORKING EVENT....................2

2.1 Before the event - Planning.........................................................................2

2.2 During the event – Controlling and monitoring........................................2

2.3 After the event – Reflecting.........................................................................2

3 TEAM BUILDING MODEL..............................................................................3

3.1 Before the event............................................................................................3

3.2 During the event...........................................................................................3

3.3 After the event..............................................................................................3

4 OVERALL PICTURE OF THE TEAM BUILDING MODEL FOR

SOCFRI.......................................................................................................................4

5 CONCLUSION....................................................................................................5

REFERENCES.............................................................................................................6

1

1 INTRODUCTION

In a business life, it is not always what you know but who you know that makes

difference to get most benefits out on the field. The right social network can have a

huge impact on business organization's success. But many of us have misguided

ideas about what how a strong network is formed. The key is not to have a large

circle filled with high-powered contacts. It is best to have select but diverse network,

made up of high-quality relationships with people who come from varying spheres

and from up and down the corporate ladder. (Cross & Thomas 2011: 149–150.) This

is why all kind of people are needed also in the Socializing Friday events.

The Socializing Friday events should be organized so that diverse people are

interested in participating and find it easy to talk with each other. The best business

networking groups operate as exchanges of business information, ideas and support.

That requires also listening. The most important skill for effective business

networking is focusing on how you can help the person rather than on how he or she

can help you. (Ward 2010.) The reciprocal relationships tend to be more fruitful.

(Cross & Thomas 2011: 153).

We think that the Socializing Friday event as a concept has to be ready and fully

working before expanding it into other cities. Therefore in this report we are

concentrating on team building aspects in the event itself. We see that also the

structure of the event can support team building activities i.e. what happens before,

during and after the event will have an effect on arising cooperation. This brings

more value add to the participants and the organizers as well. Our decision is based

on the interview with SocFri representatives and the contents of our course. We see

that with this kind of practical approach we can offer implementable solutions in

order to foster growth, development as well continuity of SocFri.

2

3

2 PROCESS OF ORGANIZING THE NETWORKING EVENT

2.1 Before the event - Planning

Before the Event - Organizers

1. Advertisement - Social media prime way of advertising.

People can start networking before the event has taken place. Social media is a good

and cost effective (free) way to take first steps towards networking before coming to

actual event. Comments on the Facebook pages give an easy and good starting point

for the upcoming face-to-face discussions. Also for introvert people it is often easier

to start creating connections when the first touch is made virtually beyond a safety

barrier granted by social media. And finding these first contacts through an easy way

may have a great effect on how many of these introverts can be seen on the event

itself.

Social media can also be seen as a tool that allows people to put faces for the names.

Through Facebook people can see how others look like before meeting them. This

will most likely lower people’s threshold to start conversations in the events and is

highly important for participants who come to the event to make contact with

someone who they don’t know beforehand as this will make pinpointing right person

easier.

SocFri people should actively keep up discussions about upcoming event and hype it.

By doing this right way, SocFri can enhance the wanted mysterious reputation of the

event. It also helps tailoring the event as people can comment on what kind of topics

they might want to have and gives easy way to give feedback.

 

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2. Registration - Way beforehand the actual event.

Allows collecting comprehensive database of people coming to event(s).

Database, with above mentioned social media, allows people to search people based

on their needs. This is crucial for the people who are not just coming to hang around

and have clear goal in their head. Also a visible participant list may work as an

incentive to other people to come around. If one spots an interesting person among

the participants the odds rise that also he or she will attend to the event in hope of

really finding some practical benefits during the afternoon.

It is important that to keep registration information optimal. Not all people want

everyone see what they are after in the event (employee looking for new job

opportunities). Yes, people can always lie why they are participating, but building

trust as an effective media for networking and reliable source of connections requires

high confidentiality from the company.

Possible items in database: picture, name, expertise, what is looking for, contact

information. Person who signs up should be able to tag information as "classified"

and hide it from others.

 

3. Practical arrangements - Quality over quantity

Practical arrangements in the event we participated were not that high standard. The

event lacked so called "womans touch". All tableware were disposal ones, salad didnt

have tools to take it, event run out snacks rather quick, drinks were more or less just

thrown on the table Many of these could be improved with small effort that would

increase professional feel of the event and would increase the probability of people

coming again.

Organizers were difficult to spot. Only way to know who were the organizers were

green badge leashes. Easiest way to improve this would be common uniform for all

organizers. This could be something easy as unified blouse with SocFri logo on front

or back (they guy making Michael Jackson moves). This was more or less true with

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the sponsor representatives. This could be done with blouse also, but it should have

different color than the organizer one and should have logos of both, SocFri and

sponsoring company.

The place could have few monitors hung up on ceiling showing small advertisements

from sponsors. These could also be used to improve atmosphere (SocFri logo guy

dancing), share information etc. Also a bit of decoration considering the current

theme would be a great way to great a warm and comfortable atmosphere. That

would require a little effort from the organizers as in most cases these items can't be

bought but should be acquired other ways such as lending, borrowing or from

sponsors.

 

4. Sponsors - More money, more publicity

Though event is planned to be non-profit the organizing still requires money. For this

reason sponsorship should have different levels. Each level could give more

publicity:

level 1 - Company gets her name to social

media, can give introduction speech at the

beginning of event, identifiable blouse.

level 2 - Same as level 1, but also has spot for

banner(s) at the event.

level 3 - Same as level 1 & 2, but has

advertisement on monitors.

GLOBAL, LOCAL, EVENT - sponsors

It's worth noticing that sponsorship in these kind of events gives a huge advantage

compared for such a little effort and money. Comparing to for example sponsorship

in football games (organizations pay big money) in SozFri the sponsorships means

advertising but also way to achieve bigger goals. It can benefit from getting new

customers, recruits or network links because just that audience and those people have

gathered in that event. Same doesn't happen in most sponsorship cases.

 

6

 

 

SMART Goals

In the planning phase of the event it is important to think about: why, who, where,

when and how. Also the SMART goals can be used i.e. goals and planning need to

be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-specific.

Goals need to specific so that it is easy to judge whether those are reached or not.

Specificity is related to measurements. Goals need to be measureable. They also need

to be achievable and realistic, e.g. necessary resources are available. The goals have

to be bound into the time so that there is enough but not too much time.

Objective for a networking event can be e.g. to achieve attendance of at least 30 new

guests at Socializing Friday event on the 13th of January 2010 by SocFri people

actively promoting the event in the social media during 2.1.–13.1.2012.

2.2 During the event – Controlling and monitoring

The event consists of three phases: arriving to the event, introduction of the invited

guests and networking game. Participants may choose how much to participate in

each of these.

Arriving to the Event

Start here (we can still name it something else as well...)

There are two important reasons for having this starting lane. One is to lower the

barrier to interaction to those who do not feel it's a natural skill, such as the more

introvert people. The other is to bring some structure into the event which is also

7

appreciated by certain people. These reasons will both lower the barrier to enter the

event and to participate and interact during the event. In order to build more effective

teams, we need different types of personalities, all of which do not appreciate just

hanging around or may see social settings and unknown people somewhat difficult.

Also different themes may be used to address certain type of people. 

Starting point is not mandatory to complete, but everyone should go there and get

their name tags. There are options in implementing this: tags could be there ready to

be picked up, or people could print them out there. Those who are familiar with the

starting point could then head out to the crowd or grab some food or drinks. We

considered that while we know who are attending the event, this is the kind of

information that also benefits the participants themselves. The cost of producing such

slips or stickers is considerably low and reguires a little effort, as all of the

information to be put into the tag can be gathered while people make their

registrations to the event. We would like to put forward the idea of giving name tags

to people based on multiple reasons. Firstly, it helps to identify the sponsors and

hosts of the event and therefore contacting them is easier. Secondly, if a person is

looking for someone he/she is especially interested to contact after glancing the

participant list, it is possible to find those people with somewhat less effort than

without the name tags. Thirdly, name tagging people help participants to remember

the names of the interesting people. As there is a lot of (more or less) sophisticared

babbling going over at the event, it is not always that easy to hear names correctly.

Further we put forward an idea of including some personal information on the tags

addingly to participants name, position and employer.

Next step or steps in the starting point would be activities to lower the barrier to start

a conversation with unknown people. There shouldn't be too many tasks or tasks that

take a long time to complete, and also they may vary between events so that the

starting point is not the same every time.

Possible activities could be:

Goal setting: the participant plans who to

talk to during the event. A participant list

helps.

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Participant gets a small ABC of how to

socialize: tips on how to start

conversations and a reminder to keep in

touch afterwards.

A short intro into pitching oneself (for

instance a basic one sentence structure).

The doors to the event should open

about 1h earlier than the invited guests

are introduced. This gives everyone the

chance to enter the starting point before

the event actually kicks off. 

Presenting the hosts and the sponsors of the evening

The hosts and sponsors of the evening are introduced and short presentations given. Some

sort of podium is needed that everybody can see and hear what they have to say. While

visiting SocFri it was noticeable that after the introductions the hosts and the

sponsors of the evening drowned in the crowd. The method of identifying these key

players could be done in a manner that makes them step out of the mass more easily.

Theme activities

Theme actitivies can be used so that guests get more relaxed and find it easier to start

discussion with each other. For example a detective game can be used.

Free conversation

After activities a notice can be given that the programme is over, wishing the people

to migle by themselves freely. According to Ingram & Morris (2007) people mix at

"mixing" events such as SocFri, but not as much as they might. Pre-existing

relationships and networks affect the mixing process so that people tend to engage

with people they've met before the event. It's also argued that in events like this

9

people do encounter and engage with others different from them. It would be

important to foster the participants to step out from their comfort zone and actively

carry out engaging with new people in order to outstrech their networks, not just to

strenghten the existing ties.

2.3 After the event – Reflecting

 

Näihin voisi kirjoittaa ylipäätään ideoistamme kuinka tapahtumaa voisi kehittää ja

kirjallisuutta löytyy ihan tosi hyvin nimenomaan noihin planning, controlling and

monitorin ja reflecting. Ei tarvitse olla isot kappaleet kunkin otsikon alle.

Several companies have founded out, that customer satisfaction is related to

companys profitability. In addition the positive customer satisfaction has an affect on

free word-of-mouth advertising and companys own human capital as well. (Luo &

Homburg 2007: 133). Indeed customers are crucial source of information, which can

be useful when developing the companies processes, customer satisfaction and

gaining positive word-of-mouth marketing especially in a country size of Finland.

Based on this it is suggested that after the meeting it is important to understand how

the participants experienced the event. In order to collect feedback a customer

satisfaction survey could be used. The link to the survey could be shared to the

participants after the meeting via e-mail and in the social media like Facebook. The

purpose of the customer satisfaction of the event is to understand the expectations

and requirements of the participants and whether those expectations and

requirements were filled (Dutka, 1993: vii). According to Wangenheim & Bayón

(2007:247)  newly acquired customers are specially eager to give word-of-mouth, so

they should be encouraged to share these precious feedback also with the company in

written form.

In this kind of case the semi-structured questionnaire could be used to collect the

feedback. Semi-structured questionnaire includes both predefined answers and open

questions. These kinds of questionnaires are commonly used in business-to-business

situations. (Hague, 1993: 21-26) The predefined questions are easy and quick to

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answer. In order to receive more detailed feedback and development proposals few

open questions could be used. In addition Net Promoter Scope related question

should be used. It is calculated from only one question:How likely are you to

recommend the event us to your friends/colleagues? (Hayes, 2008: 103)

The received feedback needs to be analyzed. It can be used as a contribution for

strategic decision making and for day-to-day practices (Morgan et. al, 2005: 148).

Based on the analysis the company needs to create actions how to improve the event.

Strong commitment is needed from the company to make changes based on the

collected feedback (Dutka, 1993, 10). Within the terms of the customer satisfaction

the collected feedback is a mean to improve service for the customer; it is not an end

(Stewart, 2002: 60-61). The results need to be shared with the participants also.

However, it needs to be thought how it is done in practice; maybe in the format of

coming improvements to the event based on the feedback.

11

3 TEAM BUILDING MODEL

3.1 Before the event

Organizations increasingly rely on teams in order to be successful in their business.

Team composition is seen as one of the most important factors in team performance

because it influences the range of available task-relevant resources as well as how

well team members communicate and cooperate with one another. (Kearney et al.

2009: 581).

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a tool often used by business to achieve

the goals of building work teams. That can be also one point of view when arguing

why different personalities are needed in well performing teams. The MBTI

identifies 16 personality types considering four dimensions of personality:

extroversion (E) ? introversion (I), intuiting (N) ? sensing (S) , thinking (T)? feeling

(F) and judging (J) ? perceiving (P). The four domains are the places where people

prefer to operate from. These preferences determine how individuals perform.

(MBTI Basics.)

There has to be a healthy component of E persons in a effective team to ensure intra-

team communication. The E is a natural communicator. If there are too many Es in

the team, the team will experience confusion with people talking at the same time

and interrupting others. The work will not move forward quickly, if there are too

many I types as they are not initiating enough to organizing or communicating with

other team members. The I types pay attention to what is really said and to the

process itself. (Berry et al. 2007: 17.)

In the domains of S and N, balance is also needed. The S types can easily perceive

the facts and communicate to other team members. They are facilitators. The N types

12

develop complex ideas that are more difficult to express. Conflicts can be expected

between the S and the N. (Berry et al. 2007: 17.)

The T type is quick to make judgements and to verbalize them. The F type may not

express their thought at all as they are afraid of hurt feelings. The Fs are best

harmonizers in the team. They are the most capable of helping the team in creating

trust. Group cohesion is most impacted by thinking and feeling types. The thinkers

are so quick to voice directions that often frighten F. However, if all are F types,

there is a risk of having no conflict. Without conflicts or differences, the team can

not achieve synergy. (Berry et al. 2007: 17.)

In the domains of J and P, there is need for acknowledgement of strengths of each

type. Also a plan on how to incorporate these strengths into the group process is

needed. The J will keep the team on schedule, while the P will help the team consider

other alternatives in the decision-making process. The P is not limited by space and

time in their thinking, they present creativity that can enhance the end-product.

(Berry et al. 2007: 17.)

3.2 During the event

3.3 After the event

Tänne sitten ryhmäytymisen näkökulmasta mitä tapahtumassa tulisi ottaa huomioon

After the event the problem is how to keep the created teams working. The teams

created within the event are informal and does not have strong ties to each other.

According Gratton et al. (2007) study the new teams including high proportion of

people who do not know each other is more difficult to collaborate. The teams

collaboration can be improved by defining clear roles and goals for everyone. The

13

goal should be left ambiguous. (Gratton et al., 2007: 10) If the team has defined a

leader to the team, he/she needs to take a responsibility to start the collaboration and

invite the team members to a first meeting.

It is not easy to legislate the interactive behaviors like high levels of participation,

cooperation and collaboration among team members. In order to achieve the

presented behavior mutual trust among members, a sense of group identity and a

sense of group efficacy needs to be in place. (Druskat et al., 2001: 83) Trust, identity

and the group efficacy can be strengthened via regular meetings; face-to-face and

virtually. Also the information within the team should be shared somehow; for

example by using Wiki-pages. It would be easier to follow what the other team

members have created, share and storm ideas etc.

In order to improve the team work and team building the guided reflection method

could be used. The groups are encouraged to reflect on what they have been doing

and how they could improve in the future via a very general training procedure. This

has effect on group processes and performance.  (Gurtner et al., 2007: 140) The

training could be provided for example by the organizer in the format of eLearning

for the teams. This would also strengthen the concept of Socializing Fridays.

14

4 OVERALL PICTURE OF THE TEAM BUILDING MODEL FOR

SOCFRI

Tehdään tänne visuaalinen kuvio, jonka alle kirjoitetaan vain, että tama

Ruvio havainnollistaa aikaisemmin esiin tuodut näkökulmat...

Organizer

liipalaapa

liipalaapa

liipalaapa

Guests

lipalaapa

liipalaapa

liipalaapa

Before the event

During the event

After the event

Organizer

Guests

Organizer

liipalaapa

liipalaapa

liipalaapa

Guests

lipalaapa

liipalaapa

liipalaapa

Organizer

liipalaapa

liipalaapa

liipalaapa

Guests

lipalaapa

liipalaapa

liipalaapa

15

5 CONCLUSION

Vastataan kuinka lähtökohtiin on tässä raportissa vastattu.

- Kuinka tapahtuma voisi tukea asiakkaiden välisten tiimien

muodostumista?

- Miten paikalle saadaan erilaisia ihmisiä?

- Miten ihmiset saadaan keskustelemaan?

The key to true business networking is the establishment of a mutally beneficial

relationship, and that's an incredibly rare event at the standard shake-hands-and-

exchange-your-business-card events that are touted as business networking

"opportunities". The most useful network consists of many different type of people

from different organization levels. Therefore it's essential to have as much variety as

possible in the Socializing Friday events' visitors.

16

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Druskat VU and Steven BW (2001) Building Emotional Intelligence of Groups.

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Dutka A (1993) AMA Handbook for Customer Satisfaction: A Complete Guide to

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Gratton L and Erickson TJ (2007) Eight Ways to Build Collaborative Teams.

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Hayes BE (2008) Measuring customer satisfaction and loyalty: Survey design, use,

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Ingram P & Morris M. W. (2007). Do People Mix at Mixers? Structure, Homophily,

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Kearney E, Gebert D & Voelpel S.C (2009) When and how diversity benefits teams:

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Luo X & Homburg C (2007) Neglected Outcomes of Customer Satisfaction. Journal

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mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/. Cited 13.10.2011.

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sbinfocanada.about.com/cs/marketing/g/busnetworking.htm. Cited 17.10.2011.