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You're listening to the Mental Notes podcast. In this episode, founder Scott Dow explains how to create team building opportunities.

There's a big difference between team building events and team building opportunities. Team building events are overvalued. And team building opportunities, they're way underutilized.

Think about team building events. They're a lot like family vacations. You don't do them very often, they cost more than you think, and they don't change much. The Magic Kingdom won't fix family dysfunction and trust falls won't fix team dysfunction. That's why team building events are overvalued.

Now, team building opportunities are different. They're always available, they don't cost much, and they're a chance to reinforce your team values. But they're way underutilized. We plan for vacations and team building events, but we don't plan for everyday team building opportunities. So let's change that. Let's build a plan and let's use a close-knit family as a role model.

A team building opportunity is a chance to promote, demonstrate, or reinforce team values. The key is thinking of team values in the same context you think of family values. Close-knit families are built at home, not on vacation.

The head of the family uses life's everyday challenges as opportunities, opportunities to build family values. They use family squabbles and sibling rivalries. They use unpopular decisions and unwanted changes. They use death, and divorce, and everything in-between.

Here's what you need to know. Anything that can tear a family or a team apart is a tremendous opportunity to bring it together. So here's how you start. Think through the things that can tear your team apart, write them down. They're the same things that can tear families apart. The squabbles, the changes, the unpopular decisions. These are the opportunities you're looking for. Remember, anything that can tear a team apart can also bring it together.

The second thing is this: the head of the household uses everyday occurrences as opportunities, opportunities to instill family values. Things like the carpool, divvying up family chores, or dinner time. You should, too. Every interaction, either one-on-one or in a group is an opportunity to instill team values. Things like hallway conversations and lunch breaks, chats on Teams or Slack, and even email threads are the opportunities you're looking for.

The next thing is this: healthy families have rituals and rules. Family dinner is an example of a ritual. Turning the TV off is an example of a rule. Walking the dog is a ritual. Leaving the phone at home is a rule.

You need to develop your team's rituals and rules. Here are some examples. A team meeting is a ritual. Everyone takes a role in the meeting is a rule. Onboarding a new employee is a ritual. Everyone helps interview is a rule.

Team building opportunities hide in plain sight. Challenging situations are opportunities. Everyday situations are opportunities. Your rituals are opportunities and the rules you create are opportunities.

So how do you put this into practice? When you reflect back on your week, use hindsight to spot the team building opportunities you missed because this will help you spot similar opportunities going forward. When you plan your week, look for the stressful situations you can anticipate because these are the team building opportunities you prepare for in advance.

Then I want you to benchmark other leaders. What team building rituals do they use? What team building rules do they enforce? What best practices can you apply?

I'm not saying you shouldn't have team building events. Hell, everyone needs a family vacation. But if you think you need a team building event, it's probably because you're missing out on team building opportunities.