Denver Group Teambuilding | CBST Adventures

World Leader in Cloud-Based Software Celebrates Another Successful Year.

This autumn we had the good fortune to host Workday, the leader in Cloud Based Human Capital Management, and help them to celebrate another great year. What is most exciting about hosting Workday is that they put a large focus on company culture and developing a sense of fun for their employees and customers.

Since the inception of Workday, Dave Duffield and Aneel Bhusri have focused on building the best company culture and they exemplify that in their Core Values. This team, from the Boulder office, certainly exemplified those values in everything they did.

We hope you can feel the camaraderie of the team and understand what makes Workday the leader in company culture. If you’d like to instill that kind of passion in your culture, please do reach out to us and we’d love to help you energize a world-class culture of success.

CBST Adventures’ CEO Talks About the Underrated Power of ‘Fun’ in Team Building

CBST Adventures’ CEO Jay Irwin shares his insights on how team builds that incorporate the element of ‘fun’ are actually more effective at bringing teams together and forging relationships that boost organizational productivity and morale.

Growing Leadership Development Company Experiences the Perfect Team-Build

What do Leadership Development Consulting companies do when they need some team building and a little outside time? They come to CBST Adventures. We love when we get to work with companies who are as passionate about leadership development and team dynamics as we are. Such was the case when we put on an event for The Regis Company in Keystone. The Regis Company is a leadership development and coaching company that had brought 20 of their clients and 20 of their employees up to Keystone for a company conference. Our event was the team building portion of the conference and we were asked to incorporate the conference theme of ‘Thinking Forward.’ We love getting to do this integration with companies as it helps us ensure continuity with their meetings and also provide the highest level of impact for the participants!

In the spirit of anticipating the future, we decided to put the team through a customized progressive and forward thinking version of our mega popular Tactical Tablet event. The group of 30 participants first broke into teams and we kicked off the event with a friendly little game of Disc Golf. It’s a great opening primer that allows teams to warm up the muscles and get ready for a day’s worth of activity. We then started the tablet adventure and each team was given one GPS-enabled tablet and had to complete 62 questions for the day as part of the tablet challenge. As we modified this challenge specifically for the theme of the company’s meeting, we added in 10 questions that addressed key ideas, messages, and takeaways from their conference. Yep, we made people ‘walk and chew gum at the same time’ but everyone did great!

After all the teams completed the Tactical Tablet challenge, they returned to their resort in Keystone for the final activity, Rodeo Ramblers. For this activity, participants put on the goofiest cowboy hats we could find and then hop on inflatable mini-horses for a wild ride of rounding up stationary cattle steers. The sheer image of seeing adults wearing these ridiculous hats flailing around on inflatable horses is worth a thousand laughs (see the Facebook pics for the proof) and that’s why we do it. We have found, and research shows, that teams that have fun and laugh together, are more productive, have greater engagement at work, and overall are happier employees. Thus, we try to create fun-filled, laughter creating experiences and games like Rodeo Ramblers at nearly every event.

Once the day was over – you could just feel the joy in the air amongst the group. Teams did a little problem solving, got outside, laughed at one another, and overall had a great time! In our opinion, these are the ideal kind of team builds as they make for lasting experiences that people will take back with them to the office. Whether it’s reminiscing about a funny thing that happened or connecting with a colleague that someone didn’t know very well, it’s these type of interactions that we love to help create because we know they may not have happened otherwise and, more over, they change companies for the better.

If you interested in creating a fun-filled, team building experience for your company, reach out to us. We’d be happy to talk through what an event for your company would look like.

Tech Startup Publication Delves Into Team Building Boosting Productivity

Tech.Co, a tech startup publication, recently published an article sharing how team building increases company productivity. We don’t want to spoil the article but to give you a quick teaser, some of the key benefits of team building discussed in the article include: Increased Openness, Enhanced Communication, and Better Identification of Employee Strengths and Weaknesses.

The article goes on to share several other team building benefits but we’ll let you read the article for yourself to get the full scoop. Give the article a read below and if you’re interested in learning how team building can improve productivity for your company, reach out to us. We’d love to chat with you on this topic!

How Team Building Activities Can Enhance Productivity

Prominent Large Consulting Firm Lets the Good Times Roll at Team Build

So often companies think that team builds have to be highly structured and serious events in order for them to be relevant and applicable to their business. In our experience working with companies from thriving small businesses to Fortune 10 corporations, laughter and fun can be incredibly powerful tools in bringing teams together. Make no mistake, structure and focus certainly have a place when it comes to team building but when these ideas become the primary focus, we find a team build is not as effective as it could be. So when prominent consulting firm Deloitte came to us to help them wrap up their 2017 planning meeting, we were sure to bring the fun.

In learning that the Deloitte was coming off a couple days of intensive meetings, we felt like the group would really benefit from some active experiences that emphasized enjoyment and silliness. The day began with a Disc Golf competition that the group had fun with, especially as some folks struggled to throw the disc and received some playful ribbings from their colleagues. All in good fun, of course.

We then moved on to our main event – the super popular GPS Challenge, where the group was broken into teams and were provided a GPS unit and a camera. The object of the game was to complete challenges throughout the town of Vail using clues we provided. Teams are awarded points for how well they complete their challenges and the team with most points at the end of the day wins. Challenges for the day included the hilarious Tour De Trikester, where adult participants ride child-sized tricycles around a mini-bike course, and the entertainingly ridiculous Rode Ramblers, which involves participants hoping around on inflatable mini-horses and trying to rope and wrangle targets all while wearing outrageous cowboy hats. The images alone bring out non-stop smiles and laughter but the good times really happen as folks dive in on these events.

What was especially neat to witness with this group from Deloitte was that while they certainly competed against one another for the GPS Challenge, they also were just really excited to partake in the different challenges and their enthusiasm was evident from one challenge to another. We love seeing teams having a great time like this and not taking themselves or the event too seriously. If you haven’t seen them already, we highly recommend you check out the pictures on Facebook as they’re pretty enjoyable, complete with people doing planks, posing with statues, and even some dancing.

It’s safe to say that at the end of the day folks were relishing the day after a rollicking good time. The team was also more connected at days end – the events, while ridiculous at times, gave them an experience to share and bond over for sure. It was great to watch and be a part of.

If your company or team is interested in working with us, give us a shout! We’d love to chat with you.

Well-Known Healthcare Product Company Finds Big-Time Fun in Team Building Event

Retreats, sales meetings, or quarterly reviews have become necessary lifeblood for businesses today. They’re great for looking back and planning ahead or even charting a new course. Oftentimes, however, these meetings can be quite intense and mentally draining after a full day or two of discussions, presentations, and problem solving. In these situations, companies and teams need a fun, relaxing break to balance the meeting work and also help bring people together. Enter CBST Adventures. Recently, a well-known healthcare product company held some team meetings in Vail and engaged CBST Adventures to inject some fun and downtime into their meetings through team building activities.

Many people may think of team building as not actually fun but more ‘mandatory fun’ – a forced activity that’s not genuinely a good time. We totally understand this, and as a result, we offer team building events that will often incorporate some degree of silliness into them. One of the activities we put this company through is called Tour de Trikester, where we have participants partake in a very mini-bicycle course on kid’s tricycles. If you can’t picture several adults on tiny tricycles, it’s downright hilarious. At the same time, as this activity is a competition, when the group is broken into teams, they can’t help but get into the activity in the spirit of competing against their coworkers. What we observe in these situations is the teams will then come up with creative strategies, encourage their coworkers, and communicate with one another without much prompting from us. We don’t tell the participants this (or at least not until the end of the day) but amidst all the fun and goofiness going on, they’re actually working on skills that have vital importance in the workplace.

Probably the best part of the day was getting to see the this company’s teams take part in our Aviation Creation activity. While this activity took place near the end of the day when you’d expect a lot of teams to be checked out, this company was all in. The challenge involved building flyable airplanes out of random plywood and foam pieces. Trust us, it’s a little bit more involved then the wooden or foam planes you got as a kid and could put together in five minutes. Once the planes were built, the teams then competed against one another to see whose plane could fly the furthest. The ingenuity folks put into designing and building the planes was impressive to say the least. Though, some planes designs and subsequent flights were not so impressive, you can be sure they got a lot of laughs. Once again, it was another activity that was pretty fun and silly at the core, yet required teams to come together, think creatively, and collaborate in trying to achieve a goal.

At the end of the day, people were smiling, laughing, and overall feeling relaxed. After daylong meetings in a conference room, you could say the experience with us was just what the doctored ordered. We’re just grateful to have helped create a memorable, fun-filled event that also helped a team grow and become more connected. Honestly, we’re not sure there’s anything more a company could want out of a team build.

If the above sounds like fun or if you’re interested in additional team building activities for your team or company, reach out to us. We’d love to hear from you!

Fortune 20 Company Has a Fun-Filled Team Build at Beautiful Cattle Ranch

In our experience, we’ve found that mountain ranches can be an incredible venue for teams to host a team build. For one of our recent events, we created a team building experience at Spruce Mountain Ranch, a sprawling ranch typically used for show cattle – on this day it played host to Hewlett Packard Enterprises (HPE). HPE sent a group of 100 people to work with us for a day and it was an absolute blast! Connection and all-purpose fun was the objective for this team building experience and so we let those ideas really drive the agenda.

After folks arrived to the ranch, we treated them to a delicious lunch and then began the activities. Given we were at an authentic cattle ranch, we thought it only fitting to have a western theme to all of our activities starting with a Western Amazing Race. With this experience, participants explored the ranch through taking part in mental and physical challenges (nothing too strenuous) requiring problem solving and creative thinking. The entire group broke into teams and each team had to pool their resources and delegate tasks to complete including a remote control car derby (a brand new activity), roping a rolling cow on wheels, rocket launching, and paintball sharpshooting, to name just a few.

What’s interesting is we find that a lot of teams aren’t necessarily super excited to do a team build at the start of an event and then are blown away once they start participating in our activities. Such was the case for HPE as the group was totally engrossed with every activity and really threw themselves into completing all the tasks as part of the Amazing Race. We think this is partly due to folks wanting to compete against their coworkers but really has more to do with the activities simply being such a great time that people can’t resist but participate. Not to mention it’s pretty funny to watch your colleagues try to drive, and inevitably crash, remote control cars. Likewise, giving your coworkers a hard time about being covered in paint-ball paint is always good for a few laughs.

As you can tell, fun and enjoyment was a big priority and a major outcome from this event. Yet, as with many of our events, from every laugh and every smile, come teams and individuals engaging with each other in new and different ways. The result is relationships are formed and memories are made that otherwise didn’t exist and it’s these kind of breakthroughs that help forge teams and bring companies together.

We closed out the day announcing the winners from the day’s activities and then flowed into a laid-back and fun-filled happy hour and dinner. The night, however, couldn’t end without one last event – a mechanical bull challenge. As with the other activities, tons of laughter, smiles, and playful ribbing ensued. The winner, the person who rode the longest (and hopefully didn’t lose their dinner), won a Google Home Device – not a bad prize, right? Not at all and not a bad team build either.

To learn more about similar events, click here.

Article Share: 10 Ways Experiential Learning Creates Long-Term Performance Impact

Given we’re a big proponent of experiential learning, specifically through our Experiential Leadership Development and Team Building programs, we wanted to share this article from the ‘Chief Learning Officer’ online publication, which is part of Human Capital Media – a major human performance media outlet.

The article shares the 10 benefits of experiential learning and we agree with and incorporate many of their suggestions into our experiential programs.

Give it a read at the link below:

http://www.clomedia.com/2017/05/08/10-ways-experiential-learning-creates-long-term-performance-impact/?utm_campaign=ED_CLO_CLO_Today_Q2_2017&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=51723322&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8QdThW_7UWahtRcqJUnJ8dNaPbTtoDTFS826Uzy9cJlLdCtnoQQ6tJVBJDAH_1SdsR5LSf7ypdCneTsZKwBD8zFyIWkg&_hsmi=51723041