Ever wonder what it takes to get a group of tech professionals to excited about giving back?  Competition!!

Even in our charity workshops like Bike-A-Thon™, we like to stress communication and other team building skills that come in handy at the office. That’s why our workshops are always a good mix of fun, learning, and hands-on activities that keep participants engaged and active.

So when we get a group who has team-building goals as well as a desire to give back, we’re ready!

We Helped T-Mobile Prepare for Their Mission

For T-Mobile, we were given the extra challenge of preparing the group to meet very specific job-related challenges they were about to face in the very near future.

Our group this time consisted of Network Operations teams from around the country. Their mission at work was to unite to form one team that collaborates to build a network of relationships. These relationships will drive performance towards delivering improved customer service that’s not only outstanding but consistent in all ways.

Sounds like teamwork!

Our Bike-A-Thon™ Surprises a Lot of People

A lot of people who’ve participated in bicycle-building workshops in the past, with other team building companies, remark on how different ours is. For starters, we spend a lot of time on icebreakers. Secondly, there’s a lot more buildup to actually getting to the point where we assemble those bikes.

In fact, this group wasn’t the first to remark that the actual time spent building the bicycles was much shorter than they’d expected. To us, that’s a complement because the real value of the Bike-A-Thon™ charity team building workshop is the team building itself (and the giving back part, of course).

We challenge participants to earn their bike parts and tools, so yes: it does take a little longer to get to actually building the bikes! A friendly competitive atmosphere galvanized everyone to do their best for the charity, which was the YMCA.

How Bicycle Building Mirrors the T-Mobile Mission

So, for this group from T-Mobile, it all worked out beautifully that we stress collaborative exercises and friendly competition in our charity workshops.

The executive for the team remarked upon this:

“…grouping together as teams to solve the problem of building a bike and delivering that to a worthy cause, is a great metaphor for the team’s overall mission.”

-Brian King, Senior VP, Technology Service Delivery & Operations at T-Mobile

Like we always say, collectively solving problems is a group skill that’s good to have in any circumstance, whether it’s at work or for life in general.