No man is an island. To bring any idea to fruition, one needs a strong team or workforce. And building this team from scratch becomes a part of the story of any brand. A strong team is the foundation upon which great corporations and conglomerates are built. Just as plants need constant care and attention to blossom, keeping a team engaged, united, on the same page and working toward one common goal becomes a task that needs constant energy. The worst thing we can do is ignore this factor altogether or take it for granted. That’s when problems begin. One could throw money at the problem and it could feel like the issue has subsided but this may not last very long. The world has been through a pandemic and realized that one’s mental, emotional and physical health matters. This epiphany will help everyone involved to focus on one’s human resource, its growth and development in addition to scaling economically. This brings us to the need for constant team building or audience engagement activities.

With a host of corporate training or team building activities out there from soft skills training sessions, to outbound training sessions, it can become difficult to make a choice as to which activity to choose. This is where I feel that group drumming sessions work really well and fit into any agenda like sugar in milk. If you feel that your team is cooped up indoors all day and you’re interested in outdoor activities for team building, a drum circle workshop will fit right in. There’s something special when we drum outdoors, surrounded by nature. Weather permitting, this is something we try and suggest to all our clients. If you feel that getting the whole team outdoors is not always possible, that’s alright. We’ll bring the drums to you and start ongoing group drumming classes for your team. Once a week is a good frequency to drum. Based on our experience here are some pro tips to remember when offering an ongoing ‘ weekly team building activity in your office or work space: 

  • Keep participation for the activity voluntary. Trust in the intelligence and potential of your workforce and have faith that they know how to spend their time. Forcing mandatory participation will only make them feel stress (similar to what they go through on a daily basis) and also add unnecessary energy to the ongoing group process. 
  • Introduce this activity within their work hours. From a long term perspective, it is practically impossible for anyone to be continuously productive for 8 straight hours in a day. Hence planning this activity outside of their work hours is like asking them to work for another hour. Think of this one hour as an Investment that will pay off in them being a lot more productive for the remaining 6 to 7 hours of the day. 
  • Purchase some drums and keep them in your recreation room. Once this culture of ‘being invested in the company’s health and wellbeing’ starts spreading, the people will automatically start gravitating toward the drums and start playing whenever they feel stressed or overwhelmed. This is one of the most primary drumming circle benefits. 
  • Make your own in-house African drumming group: Doing this long enough will help to create an in-house percussion band or djembe drumming group. This band can play at occasions (small and big). This gives them something to look forward to besides their work goals. 

If you have a more serious or technical corporate training session, what can really help is a corporate drum circle or group drumming session (a drum circle workshop when there’s no circle!) before the keynote address or team building program begins. This will help in audience engagement and will bring the whole group together in one rhythm. This helps the group be more susceptible to a behavioral input. Why? It’s simple; I will listen a lot more if I am enjoying what I am doing. Many companies may have done a group drumming session already and feel like corporate drumming team building is yesterday’s news. But making these small changes in the way this activity is consumed can really help unleash maximum potential of drum circle team building sessions. 

If reading this has piqued your interest, then feel free to reach out to us and we will share a lot more detailed information on what we can offer you as the pioneers of drum circles and audience engagement activities in India. 

Come. Drum. Be One. 
Varun Venkit
Team Taal Inc.