Engaging in a little friendly competition, mapping out your next play, learning from a mistake, and encouraging your teammates—sounds more like a fun and interactive game rather than a company meeting or training session, right? What if your company team’s growth, training, and development could incorporate an interactive component that would aid in the learning process? Company games can be developed in the form of in-house competitions amongst technicians to see who can sell the most add-on products or who can set the most leads in a month. Games can also come in the form of team building activities or even games that are uniquely developed for your company based off of well-known games such as “Monopoly” or “Jeopardy.” But the important thing about incorporating games into the business setting is to make them relevant to the training topic or lesson that you want your HVAC, plumbing, or electrical team to grasp.
While games and activities are a great mode of learning, they are also a tool that can teach a lot about each individual’s personality type as well as the dynamics of the group. From an external perspective, games are interesting because they place a group of people into a situation where the attributes that they will most likely portray are those that come most natural to them. Players are placed into a scenario where they must manage competition, strategy, and knowledge recall. These are all abilities that are vitally important to the growth and success of an independent contracting company team, both individually and collectively:
Competition
A healthy dose of friendly competition can be a good way to spark growth and development inside a company team. Whether a month-long sales competition or one hour of playing an in-house creation of “Jeopardy,” these activities are sure to bring out the competitive side of everyone on your team. However, it’s always important for leaders and managers to ensure that competition stays in-check and continues to be beneficial for all team members. Friendly competition spurs on the growth and development of company excellence by keeping a team fresh, rejuvenated, and thinking “on their toes.” A team that remains energized and is always ready to succeed despite any challenge, is a team that will be well-equipped to provide amazing service excellence.
Strategy
Games and in-house competitions are also a great way to get your team thinking strategically and purposefully in new situations. Instilling a strategic and creative mindset into your company team is great for retention, development, and company growth. Growing team members’ ability to strategize and plan is important when working to close a sale, book a call, or implement a marketing plan. When team members learn the importance of purposeful planning and strategizing, they will be more inclined to utilize the knowledge they have gained from training while out in the field such as using “power words” and positive body language to get the “little yesses” throughout their presentation.
Knowledge
Games reinforce the learning process and allow knowledge to be retained more easily. When someone answers a game-winning question correctly, it may be simply viewed as “all-in-fun” but really those questions, answers, and training lessons are making important connections inside the mind. These mental associations make future recall of the knowledge and training more effective and efficient. What better way to truly engage a team to learn your company’s systems and procedures, closing skills, or qualifying strategies than through a fun, interactive game?
Here at Service Excellence Training we have developed several games and activities that we incorporate into our training sessions. Each time they are used, we get positive feedback and we see the evident benefits of the three areas above: competition, strategy, and knowledge recall. We would love to work with your team to help develop training activities, games, and in-house competitions that will creatively grow your team’s learning and development. Thank you for following our weekly posts. Here at Service Excellence Training, we turn learning into earning!
-Resource curated by Whitney Stewart of Service Excellence Training.
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