THE WANDERINGS OF TEAM BUILDING. WHEN YOUNG GRADUATES DENOUNCE THE ABSURDITIES OF COHESION SEMINARS.

Abstract

Since the 1980s, team building sessions have flourished in companies to the point of becoming ready-made solutions that unfortunately tend to scare away the best employees. Between managerial fashion and the desire to make employees’ daily lives more attractive, team building does not always have the expected effects on the overall cohesion of teams. On the contrary, the permanent injunction to have fun on which these sessions are based has a counter-productive effect on participants. By blurring the line between fun and work, team building can give rise to feelings of dissonance among employees, which can be a source of discomfort and unease. Based on 35 interviews conducted with young graduates of French business and engineering schools, this research allows us to highlight the paradoxes of these cohesion seminars. The collection of participants’ experiences uncompromisingly demonstrates the limits of team building as it is traditionally organized. They particularly insist on the “ridiculous” nature of these moments, which are supposed to allow them to live a funny and unforgettable experience. Paradoxically, some respondents point to the emergence of complicity in shared embarrassment. However, they do not reject the very principle of team building and suggest new ways of organizing these sessions. In particular, these should be based on ad hoc and informal meeting times initiated by the employees themselves. In other words, team building should be seen as a pleasant anecdote, without grandiloquence or excessive expectations in terms of structuring the group.