Tips for Team Building.

Team building is a philosophy of job design in which employees are viewed as members of interdependent teams instead of as individual workers. Team building also refers to a wide range of activities, presented to businesses; schools; sports teams; religious or non-profit organisations designed for improving team performance.

Team building is pursued via a variety of practices  and can range from simple bonding exercises to complex simulations and multi-day team building retreats designed to develop a team (including group assessment and group-dynamic games), usually falling somewhere in between. It generally sits within the theory and practice of organisational development, but can also be applied to sports teams, school groups, and other contexts. Team building is not to be confused with "team recreation" that consists of activities for teams that are strictly recreational. 

Team building can also be seen in day-to-day operations of an organisation and team dynamic can be improved through successful leadership. Team building is an important factor in any environment, its focus is to specialise in bringing out the best in a team to ensure self-development, positive communication, leadership skills and the ability to work closely together as a team to problem solve.

Work environments tend to focus on individuals and personal goals, with reward and recognition singling out the achievements of individual employees. Team building can also refer to the process of selecting or creating a team from scratch.

People in every workplace talk about building the team, working as a team, and my team, but few understand how to create the experience of team work or how to develop an effective team. Belonging to a team, in the broadest sense, is a result of feeling part of something larger than you. It has a lot to do with your understanding of the mission or objectives of your organisation.

In a team-oriented environment, you contribute to the overall success of the organisation. You work with fellow members of the organisation to produce these results. Even though you have a specific job function and you belong to a specific department, you are unified with other organisation members to accomplish the overall objectives. The bigger picture drives your actions; your function exists to serve the bigger picture.

You need to differentiate this overall sense of teamwork from the task of developing an effective intact team that is formed to accomplish a specific goal. People confuse the two team building objectives. This is why so many team building seminars, meetings, retreats and activities are deemed failures by their participants. Leaders failed to define the team they wanted to build. Developing an overall sense of team work is different from building an effective, focused work team when you consider team building approaches.

When assembling a team it is very important to consider the overall dynamic of the team. According to Frank LaFasto, when building a team, five dynamics are fundamental to team success:

1. The team member: Successful teams are made up of a collection of effective individuals. These are people who are experienced, have problem solving ability, are open to addressing the problem, and are action oriented.
2. Team relationships: For a team to be successful the members of the team must be able to give and receive feedback.
3. Team problem solving: An effective team depends on how focused and clear the goal of the team is. A relaxed, comfortable and accepting environment and finally, open and honest communication are required.
4. Team leadership: Effective team leadership depends on leadership competencies. A competent leader is: focused on the goal, ensures a collaborative climate, builds confidence of team members, sets priorities, demonstrates sufficient “know-how” and manages performance through feedback.
5. Organisational environment: The climate and culture of the organisation must be conducive to team behaviour. Competitiveness should be discouraged and uniformity should be encouraged - this will eliminate conflict and discord among team members.

Twelve Cs for Team Building:

Executives, managers and organisation staff members universally explore ways to improve business results and profitability. Many view team-based, horizontal, organisation structures as the best design for involving all employees in creating business success.

No matter what you call your team-based improvement effort: continuous improvement, total quality, lean manufacturing or self-directed work teams, you are striving to improve results for customers. Few organisations, however, are totally pleased with the results their team improvement efforts produce. If your team improvement efforts are not living up to your expectations, this self-diagnosing checklist may tell you why. Successful team building, that creates effective, focused work teams, requires attention to each of the following.

• Clear Expectations: Has executive leadership clearly communicated its expectations for the team's performance and expected outcomes? Do team members understand why the team was created? Is the organisation demonstrating constancy of purpose in supporting the team with resources of people, time and money? Does the work of the team receive sufficient emphasis as a priority in terms of the time, discussion, attention and interest directed its way by executive leaders?
  
  

• Context: Do team members understand why they are participating on the team? Do they understand how the strategy of using teams will help the organisation attain its communicated business goals? Can team members define their team's importance to the accomplishment of corporate goals? Does the team understand where its work fits in the total context of the organisation's goals, principles, vision and values?

• Commitment: Do team members want to participate on the team? Do team members feel the team mission is important? Are members committed to accomplishing the team mission and expected outcomes? Do team members perceive their service as valuable to the organisation and to their own careers? Do team members anticipate recognition for their contributions? Do team members expect their skills to grow and develop on the team? Are team members excited and challenged by the team opportunity?

• Competence: Does the team feel that it has the appropriate people participating? (As an example, in a process improvement, is each step of the process represented on the team?) Does the team feel that its members have the knowledge, skill and capability to address the issues for which the team was formed? If not, does the team have access to the help it needs? Does the team feel it has the resources, strategies and support needed to accomplish its mission?

• Charter: Has the team taken its assigned area of responsibility and designed its own mission, vision and strategies to accomplish the mission. Has the team defined and communicated its goals; its anticipated outcomes and contributions; its time lines; and how it will measure both the outcomes of its work and the process the team followed to accomplish their task? Does the leadership team or other coordinating group support what the team has designed?

• Control: Does the team have enough freedom and empowerment to feel the ownership necessary to accomplish its charter? At the same time, do team members clearly understand their boundaries? How far may members go in pursuit of solutions? Are limitations (i.e. monetary and time resources) defined at the beginning of the project before the team experiences barriers and rework?
  
  Is the team’s reporting relationship and accountability understood by all members of the organisation? Has the organisation defined the team’s authority? To make recommendations? To implement its plan? Is there a defined review process so both the team and the organisation are consistently aligned in direction and purpose? Do team members hold each other accountable for project time lines, commitments and results? Does the organisation have a plan to increase opportunities for self-management among organisation members?

• Collaboration: Does the team understand team and group process? Do members understand the stages of group development? Are team members working together effectively inter-personally? Do all team members understand the roles and responsibilities of team members? Team leaders? Team recorders? Can the team approach problem solving, process improvement, goal setting and measurement jointly? Do team members cooperate to accomplish the team charter? Has the team established group norms or rules of conduct in areas such as conflict resolution, consensus decision making and meeting management? Is the team using an appropriate strategy to accomplish its action plan?

• Communication: Are team members clear about the priority of their tasks? Is there an established method for the teams to give feedback and receive honest performance feedback? Does the organisation provide important business information regularly? Do the teams understand the complete context for their existence? Do team members communicate clearly and honestly with each other? Do team members bring diverse opinions to the table? Are necessary conflicts raised and addressed?

• Creative Innovation: Is the organisation really interested in change? Does it value creative thinking, unique solutions, and new ideas? Does it reward people who take reasonable risks to make improvements? Or does it reward the people who fit in and maintain the status-quo? Does it provide the training, education, access to books and films, and field trips necessary to stimulate new thinking?

• Consequences: Do team members feel responsible and accountable for team achievements? Are rewards and recognition supplied when teams are successful? Is reasonable risk respected and encouraged in the organisation? Do team members fear reprisal? Do team members spend their time finger pointing rather than resolving problems? Is the organisation designing reward systems that recognise both team and individual performance? Is the organisation planning to share gains and increased profitability with team and individual contributors? Can contributors see their impact on increased organisation success?

• Coordination: Are teams coordinated by a central leadership team that assists the groups to obtain what they need for success? Have priorities and resource allocation been planned across departments? Do teams understand the concept of the internal customer—the next process, anyone to whom they provide a product or a service? Are cross-functional and multi-department teams common and working together effectively? Is the organisation developing a customer-focused process-focused orientation and moving away from traditional departmental thinking?

• Cultural Change: Does the organisation recognise that the team-based, collaborative, empowering, enabling organisational culture of the future is different than the traditional, hierarchical organisation it may currently be? Is the organisation planning to or in the process of changing how it rewards, recognises, appraises, hires, develops, plans with, motivates and manages the people it employs?
  
  Does the organisation plan to use failures for learning and support reasonable risk? Does the organisation recognise that the more it can change its climate to support teams, the more it will receive in pay back from the work of the teams?
  Read more about culture change.

Great teamwork makes things happen more than anything else in organisations. The diagram representing McGregor's X-Y Theory helps illustrate how and why empowered teams get the best results. Empowering people is more about attitude and behaviour towards staff than processes and tools. Teamwork is fostered by respecting, encouraging, enthusing, caring for people, not exploiting or dictating to them.

At the heart of this approach is love and spirituality which helps bring mutual respect, compassion, and humanity to work. People working for each other in teams are powerful force, more than skills, processes, policies. Make sure there are more than annual appraisals, management-by-objectives, and the 'suits' from head office; more than anything. 

Teams usually become great teams when they decide to do it for themselves - not because someone says so. Something inspires them maybe, but ultimately the team decides. It's a team thing. It has to be. The team says: 'Okay. We can bloody well make a difference. We will be the best at what we do. We'll look out for each other and succeed - for us - for the team. And we'll make sure we enjoy ourselves while we're doing it'. And then the team starts to move mountains.

At Humba-HR-Consultants we would encourage you to - Spend time and attention on each of these twelve tips to ensure your work teams contribute most effectively to your business success. Your team members will love you, your business will soar, and empowered people will "own" and be responsible for their work processes. Can your work life get any better than this? Yes I am sure it can, all it needs is working on it.