Team Building Training That Actually Works
Most team building fails within a week. Real team performance comes from developing your leaders as a cohort — building shared language, practicing new behaviours over months, and applying what they learn with their actual teams.
Most team building fails within a week. The escape room was fun. The offsite felt productive. Then everyone returns to the same patterns, the same tensions, the same gaps.
Real team performance doesn't come from a single day together. It comes from developing your leaders as a cohort — building shared language, practicing new behaviours over months, and applying what they learn with their actual teams.
That's what we do.
Why Most Team Building Doesn't Last
There's nothing wrong with wanting your team to work better together. The problem is how most organisations try to make it happen.
The one-day workshop problem
Research shows learners forget 50-70% of new material within 24 hours. After a week, retention drops to 10-20%. A single team building day — no matter how well designed — fights against how memory works.
The individual training problem
Sending one person on a leadership course creates a different issue. They return with new ideas, new language, new approaches. And a team that hasn't shared the experience.
"What happened to Sarah at that course?"
Without shared language or team-based implementation, new habits don't survive. Research shows 80% of isolated training fails. The biggest predictor of whether training transfers isn't course quality — it's whether others around them share the experience.
The activities problem
Escape rooms, cooking classes, personality quizzes — they create a fun day. They don't address the real issues:
I got too emotional.
I didn't push back enough. Kind of let the other person take control of the situation.
I made a presumptuous remark halfway through the conversation, which sent the other party into the red brain. He felt attacked and ridiculed.
The way the question came across was worse than anticipated. It seemed like I was blaming rather than asking.
These are real responses from leaders in our programs, describing conversations that didn't go to plan. No team activity teaches you how to handle these moments. They require practice, over time, with support.
What High-Performing Teams Actually Need
After analysing 172,288 practice responses from leaders across 450+ programs, we've identified what separates high-performing teams from dysfunctional ones.
1. Leaders Who Share a Common Language
When your leadership team develops together, they build shared frameworks for feedback, conflict, delegation, and accountability. They can hold each other to the same standards because they've learned the same approaches.
When one person attends a course alone, they return speaking a language no one else understands. Change dies in translation.
2. Skills Practiced Over Time, Not Learned in a Day
Behaviour change requires spaced practice. Effect sizes for learning jump from 0.71 to 0.88 when distributed over weeks rather than concentrated in workshops. That's why our program runs 6-9 months, not one day.
Leaders practice daily — around 10 minutes — with their actual teams. They try things, fail safely, adjust, try again. Over months, small actions become habits. Habits become how they lead.
3. Psychological Safety That's Built, Not Declared
But you can't create it by announcing "this is a safe space." It's created through consistent behaviour: responding to mistakes without blame, asking questions instead of making accusations, listening without distraction.
Here's how leaders describe the moment they felt truly understood:
They listened, weren't distracted and focused on me. Were able to confirm what I had said.
There was no judgement.
The conversation was raw and honest.
These moments don't happen by accident. They happen when leaders learn and practice specific skills — perspective-taking, empathy, emotional self-control.
4. Accountability That's Clear and Shared
When we asked leaders about times they lacked accountability, they were honest:
I was wilfully ignorant of my capabilities and I was not held accountable to anyone else.
Expectations were not clearly communicated to me proactively.
And when we asked what they wished team members would change:
Take accountability for their actions when they do the wrong thing.
Be willing to take on challenge rather than the easy way out.
Contributing more to the overall workload.
These issues don't resolve with a team lunch. They require leaders who know how to set expectations, give feedback, and have direct conversations — skills they develop through our Team Building and Conflict Management journeys.
How We Develop Teams: The Cohort Approach
Traditional team building takes your team offsite for a day. We develop your leadership team together over 6-9 months.
The Cohort Difference
Your emerging leaders, new managers, and team leads develop together in groups of 8-12. They share experiences, troubleshoot real challenges, build a network that outlasts the program.
When everyone speaks the same language and faces the same growth edges, change gets easier. No one's doing it alone.
This solves the "individual training problem." Instead of one person returning to an unchanged environment, you're developing a critical mass of leaders who reinforce each other's growth.
Team Graduation
Participants graduate together. Recognition that they've completed something substantial, alongside peers who shared the journey. Some organisations hold CEO-led ceremonies. The message to the organisation: leadership development matters here.
Results From Organisations Like Yours
MYOB — Technology
MYOB has been developing leaders with Leda for five years. What started as a pilot is now embedded in their leadership calendar.
We saw results within the first year. Now in our fifth year it's part of the calendar.
— MYOB Leadership Team
How they grow in their existing role, and show willingness to help take responsibilities away from me. Helps me focus on the right things.
— MYOB Line Manager
Supagas — Industrial
Supagas invested in developing frontline leaders across their national operation. The impact extended beyond the individuals trained.
When your leaders get better, your employer brand gets better. People want to work for managers who know how to lead.
Camp Quality — Non-Profit
Camp Quality needed to develop team leaders who could deliver on their mission with limited resources.
One of the best investments we've made in our people. The completion rates and feedback speak for themselves.
— GM People & Culture
What Leaders Learn
Our program includes specific journeys designed to build team performance through leader capability.
Team Building Basics
The foundations of managing a team. Over 30,100 leaders have practiced these skills.
• Diversity and team dynamics
• Psychological safety and mutual appreciation
• Setting ground rules for how things are done
• Running productive meetings
• Delegating work among team members
• Making decisions together
Build Team Culture
The behaviours that create lasting team culture. Over 12,788 leaders have practiced these skills.
• Building team accountability
• Building team trust and respect
• Finding joy at work (yes, it's learnable)
• Closing skill gaps
• Setting a better example
• Building collective emotional intelligence
Manage Conflict
The hardest conversations leaders face. Over 53,754 leaders have practiced these skills.
• Understanding your own biases
• The neuroscience of why people shut down (and how to prevent it)
• The SCARF social threat model
• Framing difficult conversations
• Asking better questions
• Taking others' perspectives
Master Collaboration
The daily interactions that make or break teamwork. Over 39,140 leaders have practiced these skills.
• Communication styles and how to adapt
• Active listening with genuine empathy
• Using Discovery, Delivery, and Learning Conversations strategically
• Working through tension before it becomes conflict
• Collaborating across team boundaries
Built on Research. Proven in Practice.
Developed with world-class leadership researchers from Monash Business School, including Professor Anne Lytle (PhD, Kellogg School of Management).
Recognised by AACSB's Innovations That Inspire — the same body that accredits the world's top business schools.
Who This Is For
This program develops teams of leaders, not individuals in isolation.
You're a good fit if:
• You're an HR or L&D leader responsible for leadership development
• You have a cohort of emerging leaders, new managers, or team leads to develop together (8-12 people)
• You've tried one-day team building and seen limited lasting impact
• You want measurable outcomes, not just a good day out
• You're ready to invest in 6-9 months of development (not looking for a quick fix)
You're not a good fit if:
• You want a single team-building event or activity day
• You're an individual looking for personal development
• You need something in the next two weeks
• You're looking for the cheapest option
Build a Leadership Team That Performs
One-day activities give you a fun experience. Developing your leaders together gives you years of improved performance.
If you're ready to invest in your leadership team — not just another activity day — let's talk.
Frequently Asked Questions
Traditional workshops focus on a single day of activities. We develop your leadership team together over 6-9 months, building shared language and daily practice that creates lasting behaviour change. The team improves because your leaders develop together — not because they solved a puzzle once.
Tuckman's model describes five stages: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning. Most team building workshops try to skip straight to "Performing." Our approach develops leaders who can guide their teams through each stage effectively — especially the messy "Storming" phase where most teams get stuck.
Various frameworks use different "5 Cs" — common ones include Communication, Collaboration, Commitment, Confidence, and Coachability. Our journeys cover all of these through practical skill development, not just frameworks.
The problem isn't that team activities are corny — it's that they don't create lasting change. Even well-designed activities don't teach leaders how to give feedback without triggering defensiveness, or how to address underperformance directly. Those skills require practice over time.
Six or nine months. Both options cover the full curriculum — the difference is pacing and depth of practice.
About 10 minutes per day on the app, plus monthly mentoring sessions (60-90 minutes). Designed to fit busy schedules.
8-12 leaders. Small enough for real conversation. Large enough for different perspectives. The cohort benefit falls away below groups of 6.
Yes. Many organisations run several cohorts simultaneously across different locations or business units. MYOB has developed 264+ leaders across multiple cohorts over five years.
Yes. The program is built for it. One client runs fully remote across Australia, New Zealand, and the UK — three countries, three time zones. Both their cohorts hit 100% completion. Distributed teams often benefit more from the cohort structure because it creates connection that wouldn't happen organically.
Based on our data: 88-93% completion rates (compared to 3-15% for typical digital learning), significant promotion rates among participants, and measurable engagement improvements. At MYOB, 50% of the 2020 cohort were promoted. At Camp Quality, organisation-wide engagement rose by 5%.