Sunday 2 October 2011

Essentials Of Team Building

By Owen Jones


Various terms like synergy, group of individuals, whole, co-operation, having one objective, reporting to one boss and working together are used to describe a team.

Some of these terms also represent particularly decent teams. An easy definition of a team is a group of people working towards attaining a common aim.

Team building is a wide-ranging process to enable a group of individuals working together to accomplish their common objective. It is one of the most vital subjects covered by management studies.

Team building carried out in the form of management consultancy has proven to be the most effective form of team building. Pure training has also been used in building teams but management consultancy has proved to be more successful.

There are three fundamental stages in the team building process:

1. Clarifying the goals the team is working to accomplish.

2. Identifying any barriers in reaching those goals.

3. Dealing with the situation, removing the barriers and paving ways for the achievement of those goals.

The necessary skill desired here is the ability to tackle issues, find the solution and solve it in proper order. Team building can take different forms depending upon the nature and the size of the team.

The foundation of good teamwork is embedded in the effectiveness of the team building activity. No team building activity can be effective unless the team has a shared dedication to pursue the common objective.

So, before applying any other team building activities, the presence of shared commitment in a team must be guaranteed.

Team building is neither a single event nor an activity to be performed by someone outside the team. Although management consultants can help greatly in facilitating the team building process, the primary obligation to perform this quest goes to the team manager or leader, and the team members.

The basis of shared commitment can be made by adopting these guidelines;

1. Clearly defining the goals of the team and establishing a collective ownership of those aims in the team.

2. Identifying the issues inhabiting the team and removing such issues.

3. Positioning enablers in the team to accomplish the goals with high standards.

4. Using the correct sequence to help the team climb the ladder of success and achievement.

There are four basic sorts of teams and each one of these requires different team building events;

1. In the case of projects where the tasks keep on altering, the team building process should focus on building individual abilities and commitment.

2. In the case of small teams comprising 2 to 12 members, the team building activities should focus on removing the difficulties like personality differences, inter-personal associations, and individual dynamics etc. by overcoming them though working together and team bonding.

3. In the case of team islands i.e. the interaction of different teams, the inhibitors are more persistent and difficult to remove. Building a relationship and bridging the differences ought to become the focal point of team building in such circumstances.

4. The largest scale of team building is the organizational culture. The culture of an organization is a larger whole which absorbs the individual differences of the constituent teams.

Different kinds of activities are used in team building for different sorts of teams.




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