#teambuilding

The Sabre Blog

Bespoke team building with tailored Picture Perfect images

Our painting / art based team building challenge "Picture Perfect" proves to be increasingly popular with clients around the world. Small sub teams work on seperate images, and using carefully crafted templates that require quality cross-funtional communication, ultimately create a giant single masterpiece as a united total team. In addition to having a library of beautiful images that can be used for the event, our designers and artists can also create bespoke / tailored ima

Memorable team building in Sydney at the historic Q Station Manly.

Sabre’s Strike Force is a team building challenge with a military theme that we have been tailoring for a wide range of mostly corporate clients since 1988. It’s still going strong after all these years, and our most recent Strike Force was conducted for a “secret client group” at the historic Q Station at Manly in Sydney. This expansive and atmospheric venue provided not only a spectacular backdrop and view of the Harbour and City of Sydney, but also a supposedly haunted mee

Charity Team Building - Compassion Through Fashion for Breast Cancer Awareness

Sabre has recently delivered a tailored version of our Fashion Fiasco team building challenge for Breast Cancer Awareness at IHG Sanctuary Cove with Women in Tourism. We nickname our charity versions of this format "Compassion Through Fashion". It's a great format for not only having interactive and team-based fun, but also leaving a valuable legacy from an event, function or meeting. Over 100 budding fashion designers worked in team tables to design and execute some wearable

Belbin Accreditation for team building experts

We'd like to congratulate our latest Belbin Accreditation Course graduates. As Belbin Distributor for Australia Sabre can deliver the official two day Belbin Accreditation course, which equips Belbin users to take their knowledge and skills to the next level. Those accredited include consultants, team building facilitators, HR and L&D professionals, academics and business leaders. The Belbin Model is renowned world-wide as providing the gold standard for team building that i

CSIRO have team building success with the Picture Perfect painting challenge.

Teams from the CSIRO recently participated in Sabre's "Picture Perfect" cross-functional painting challenge at the QLD State Library. The total group was formed into smaller sub-teams each responsible for their own part of the "bigger picture", but with limited information and resources. There were also rules and constraints within which teams could network and communicate with one another. High quality communication, collaboration and teamwork between teams was essential to

Team Building China with a CSI in Beijing for AutoHome

Our China team has just delivered a very successful "CSI - Spy School" event for 200 participants from the well-known Chinese automotive supply company AutoHome in Beijing. This is a fun and engaging indoor team busienss game where each team must undertake numerous challenges and investigate some fascinating crime scene evidence to build a watertight case for working out "who-dunnit?". Our China team headed up by Alex and Nat have offices in Beijing and Shanghai and offer a l

Sabre's Vietnam War era Jeep used for Miss Saigon Musical Launch

Usually Sabre's military vehicles are deployed as themed props for team building events and programmes, but occasionally they get exposed to some Broadway and Hollywood style glitz and glamour. Recently one of our vehicles, an M151A2 Mutt Jeep, was used by the Gold Coast Arts Centre to help launch their spectacular new production of the Musical "Miss Saigon". Removed from its usual place of residence in our vehicle workshops, the Jeep was used as a centrepiece amidst the colo

Historic military vehicles arrive for team building with a "business is war" theme.

Sabre has recently welcomed a beautifully restored WW2 Military White Scout Car to our growing pool of combat vehicles deployed for military themed corporate team building events, film and television work and also in support of community and Veterans welfare events. We have proudly accepted custodianship of the vehicle from the 2/14 Light Horse (QMI) Armoured Corps Heritage Association. Since 1988 Sabre has delivered many corporate team building events and conference based bu

Team Building in Cairns with Pfizer

As big fans of Far North Queensland Sabre loves it when team building in Cairns and Port Douglas is on a client's radar. We just had a great time with 150 folks from Pfizer who experienced a tailored Amazing Race style format around Cairns. It was a beautiful day with plenty of sunshine, but mild enough to get around comfortably. Naturally in hot Northern summers you have to stage the outdoor components very carefully indeed, but in Autumn and Winter being out in Cairns can

Team Building is Dead! Long Live Team Development!

Is it time to break out the defibrillators for old school team building events at conferences? After a plethora of low cost, reality TV style concepts at conferences, it may be time for a “renaissance” for M.I.C.E (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Events) based team building. The PA and EA driven selection of event based team building (classic team building) certainly has an important role in the industry, but there is undoubtedly a fast growing demand for more substantive

Team Building Melbourne

Melbourne is a highly diverse and stylish city well-suited to team building and team based activities for meetings and events. Over the years we have made great use of the CBD area, St Kilda, Southbank and even Pentridge Prison for Melbourne team building that has been highly tailored for corporate, government and sporting groups. Sabre has been designing indoor and outdoor activity formats since 1988 for both conference clients and those seeking more substantive team and lea

Do we need to be a team?

If so, WHAT SORT OF TEAM ARE WE? Do we need to operate as a team? If yes, what do we mean by team? If it’s not a team, then what is it? Teams and managers need to be able to examine what style of operation their type of function requires, what sort of team they need to be and the behaviors that will then be required. “Critchley and Casey” are two management authors who address the mode of group work by linking the degree of complexity or uncertainty facing a group to the need

Shell teams create a work of art in our Picture Perfect Challenge

The latest client to make use of our Picture Perfect team building challenge was the team from Shell in Australia. We used Picture Perfect as the culminating challenge of a Team DNA session that also made use of facilitated team workshops and Belbin Team Role Profiles. The great thing about Picture Perfect is that it really draws out the behaviours required for effective cross-functional collaboration and execution in a project environment. Futhermore, it delivers a lasting r

Vita Group Survivors on Samsung Island

The Vita Group are a valued client of Sabre's and we have enjoyed working with their highly motivated teams a great deal over the years. We have delivered a variety of programmes and events for them ranging from our Team and Leadership DNA for their leaders and managers as well as Belbin profiling and accreditations. Major team challenges at national conferences such as Picture Perfect and The Agency have also been a great deal of fun. Most recently we had the pleasure of c

Sabre's Top 5 Factors for Experiential Learning / Team Building Design

The top 5 things we consider when designing activities for team and leadership development. 1. Balance novelty, relevance and the “level playing field”. The activity should be removed just enough from their normal experience base to provide little or no advantage for people’s functional status or experience. We seek to draw out natural traits biases and behaviour. A novel theme, narrative and framework is useful (many game styles have been done to death and thus lose a gre

Team DNA and Leadership DNA

Team and Leadership DNA is all about developing practical insights into what makes teams and leaders tick. The behavioural strengths and weaknesses that each team member and leader projects in their real world interactions (particularly when under pressure) are what we nickname "Team and Leadership DNA". Just like biological DNA these insights can be measured and just as instructive for designing strategies to help make the "organism" that is a team far stronger. Far from bei

Conference Team Building vs Development

Conference Team Building vs Team Building for Development Team Building events at a conference usually have time and budgetary constraints placed upon them that are not as common on more strategic level team and leadership development approaches. As a consequence of this it is important to fairly distinguish between the expected outcomes that can be derived within a stand-alone conference event as opposed to a longer term or more strategic team building initiative that may do