Recently, a teacher whose class regularly scores top marks shared her secret for team building success with me. "It's easy," she told me. "Each week, we set a goal as a class. If we've reached the goal at the end of the week, I treat the class to pizza and a game and then we sit down and plan next week's goal."

There in a nutshell is a tried and true strategy for building and maintaining successful teamwork that any corporate event planner should take to heart. My teacher friend's Friday afternoon 'pizza party' serves a triple function - it recognizes the work achieved, rewards the team for their work, and serves as a springboard for the next goal. To be successful, a corporate event should do three things - recognize, reward and motivate.

Granted, when you're dealing with high-powered executives, programmers or salespeople, a Friday afternoon pizza party may not be quite the ticket. Higher goals merit higher rewards - but the principle remains the same. If you're planning a corporate event weekend, then your plans should include all three arms of the success formula.

This isn't as difficult to do as it may seem. Any corporate event that's meant to recognize and reward contributions to the team can serve as a springboard for planning further successful activities and include team building activities to cement the bonds of the work group. An event that's planned as a team building weekend could easily include a recognition dinner to reward those members of the team who've made outstanding contributions.

The key to making sure that your corporate event accomplishes all of your goals is careful planning right from the start. Before you decide on the activities for your corporate event, take the time to work out your goals. Is it your aim to reward your employees? Recognize achievement? Motivate your teams? Hammer a group into a team? Once you know what it is that you want to accomplish, it's time to call in the professionals.

A corporate event planner with expertise and experience in team building activities, corporate event planning, outdoor team building and corporate hospitality events can show you a wide range of fun corporate events and activities that will serve any corporate event strategy you have in mind. Even more importantly, they'll bring their own experience to the planning table - and the execution of the event. Using a professional corporate event service means you needn't worry that someone will forget to meet the keynote speaker's plane, and your own key people aren't tying up their time running around to find matching napkins for the company reward dinner.

In the end, choosing to use a corporate event planning service is no different than any other business decision. You hand the work to those that have the best resources to accomplish the task. When it comes to fitting a corporate event to its purpose, a professional event planner can turn your company recognition dinner into a motivating, rewarding and inspiring team building event that will kick your next quarter into high gear.