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ManagingYour Team 147

phies, and publications as rewards in their new organizations.
These rewards need not be financial. Often, simple but widespread
recognition programs work even more effectively than financial
incentives for motivating performance.

IMPLEMENTATION GUIDANCE
When designing a program of bonding activities in your organiza-
tion, bear in mind two things: culture and resources.
As with so many management topics, the context of the culture
of your organization (or department or team, as cultures can vary
widely within organizations) will play a major role in how best to
promote bonding. There are so many variations in norms and
acceptable behavior—a team night out at a typical Silicon Alley
dot-com might be scandalous at, say, Proctor and Gamble—that
we wouldn’t dare to suggest exactly which type of activity would
work best for you. Still, we believe that most organizations could
benefit from a bit of loosening up—not that they should forget
about strategic planning or financial controls, just that people
should enjoy themselves a little more in the workplace. We also
suggest that you consider some events beyond the annual company
picnic or golf outing: go-carting, bowling, skiing, paintball, any-
thing to take people out of their routine and help them bond.
Once you’ve come up with the ultimate bonding program, you
still have to get the resources, that is, the money, to pay for it.
Paintball for 300 people isn’t cheap. Frankly, we assume that a cer-
tain amount of bonding improves performance within the organi-
zation. This seems intuitive to us and, since quite a number of
companies spend a lot of money on such activities, to many cor-
porations around the world. Nevertheless, if your organization
doesn’t devote many resources to bonding, then you will proba-
bly have to make a case for the benefits of bonding that will con-
vince whoever controls your organization’s purse strings.