A couple of weeks ago, most of our team and their families joined us for one of our favourite family and dog friendly walks up the back of Muriwai Beach. Walking through bush, wading through streams and running up and down a couple of giant sand dunes makes for a great outing on a winter’s day, especially when finished up with coffees and hot chocolates at the local café.

This mini-adventure was a follow up to our previous team plus family outing in the autumn – a day out on the farm cutting up firewood and then cooking sausages and ridiculously large pieces of steak over the open fire, whilst the kids played in the stream and bush.

Why do we do this?

It’s one thing to take your staff or clients to the rugby or out for dinner. Take your people and/or your clients jumping off 14m waterfalls, or on a four-day wilderness rafting trip and you will give them an experience which they will never forget, and which they will forever associate with you and your business.

Unfortunately, many team building activities or corporate entertainment events are often a less than memorable experience and we often find ourselves questioning their value, relative to the time and money invested.

If you want to get to know someone better and potentially get closer to them – take them into an environment which may well be outside their level of familiarity or comfort zone and where you have the time, without too many distractions, to get to know them better 

Over the last twenty plus years, across a variety of businesses, we have developed a culture of working hard and playing hard. If you want to build a team and find out who are the keepers, throw them in the deep end – like walking the 80km Hillary Trail, over 24 hours, with some torrential rain and a thunderstorm thrown into the mix. This is a guaranteed fast-track way to find out to see how people perform under pressure. We’d argue that you never really know someone until you have shared a bit of adversity with them. 

Also, there’s nothing quite like the fear, anticipation and excitement of a big upcoming adventure or event to focus both individuals and the team on a common goal and how they are going to prepare and rise to the challenge. Following an event like this, everyone has a shared sense of satisfaction, achievement and a well earnt camaraderie which helps create trust and enduring bonds.

Historically we kept these adventures pretty much to our team, business partners and our clients only. Sometimes these events just aren’t suitable for family and family can also be a distraction when you’re trying to deliver a memorable adventure and engaged in relationship building. We still run team and or client only events for exactly this reason.

However, most of us work long hours and ensuring that we get enough quality family time is bloody important. Involving our families, in a fun and interactive way, with the activities and adventures which we can all enjoy together is another great way to build relationships within your team and a way to give something back to the families who support us.

Another philosophy we are big on is ‘family first’. Whenever any of us has something particularly good or bad going on in our home environments, it’s hard to keep focused on our work. In our view it’s important to have a culture where your people can let you know that they have things outside of work which they need to deal with, and you have the trust and confidence in them to let them go and do what they need to do.

Here at Crux we are big believers in strategy, but we also strongly believe that a great culture trumps strategy every time. So, we look forward to seeing you and maybe your family out in the great outdoors soon, maybe on one of our adventures!