Team building
Encyclopedia
Team building refers to a wide range of activities, presented to businesses, schools, sports teams, religious or nonprofit organizations 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 organizational 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 is an important factor in any environment, its focus is to specialize 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 & recognition singling out the achievements of individual employees. "How to create effective teams is a challenge in every organization" Team building can also refer to the process of selecting or creating a team from scratch.
What are team-building exercises and what is their purpose?
Team-building exercises consist of a variety of tasks designed to develop group members and their ability to work together effectively. There are many types of team building activities that range from kids games to games that involve novel complex tasks and are designed for specific needs. There are also more complex team building exercises that are composed of multiple exercises such as ropes courses, corporate drumming and exercises that last over several days. The purpose of team building exercises is to assist teams in becoming cohesive units of individuals that can effectively work together to complete tasks.
This type of team building exercise is exactly what it sounds like. Communications exercises are problem solving activities that are geared towards improving communication skills. The issues teams encounter in these exercises are solved by communicating effectively with each other.
• Goal: Create an activity which highlights the importance of good communication in team performance and/or potential problems with communication.
Problem-solving/decision-making exercise
Problem-solving/decision-making exercises focus specifically on groups working together to solve difficult problems or make complex decisions. These exercises are some of the most common as they appear to have the most direct link to what employers want their teams to be able to do.
• Goal: Give team a problem in which the solution is not easily apparent or requires the team to come up with a creative solution
Planning/adaptability exercise
These exercises focus on aspects of planning and being adaptable to change. These are important things for teams to be able to do when they are assigned complex tasks or decisions.
• Goal: Show the importance of planning before implementing a solution
Trust exercise
A trust exercise involves engaging team members in a way that will induce trust between them. They are sometimes difficult exercises to implement as there are varying degrees of trust between individuals and varying degrees of individual comfort trusting others in general.
• Goal: Create trust between team members
(and combinations of the above)
Team interaction involves "soft" interpersonal skills
including communication, negotiation, leadership, and motivation - in contrast to technical skills directly involved with the job at hand. Depending on the type of team building, the novel tasks can encourage or specifically teach interpersonal team skills to increase team performance.
refers to techniques, processes and tools for organizing and coordinating a team towards a common goal - as well as the inhibitors to teamwork and ways to remove, mitigate or overcome them.
Several well-known approaches to team management have come out of academic work.
to gauge its effectiveness and improve its performance. To assess itself, a team seeks feedback
from group members to find out both its current strengths and weakness.
To improve its current performance, feedback from the team assessment can be used to identify gaps between the desired state and the current state, and to design a gap-closure strategy. Team development can be the greater term containing this assessment and improvement actions, or as a component of organizational development.
Another way is to allow for personality assessment amongst the team members, so that they will have a better understanding of their working style, as well as their fellow team mates.
A structured team-building plan is a good tool to implement team bonding and thus, team awareness. These may be introduced by companies that specialize in executing team-building sessions, or done internally by the human resource department.
Performance
A performance, in performing arts, generally comprises an event in which a performer or group of performers behave in a particular way for another group of people, the audience. Choral music and ballet are examples. Usually the performers participate in rehearsals beforehand. Afterwards audience...
. Team building is pursued via a variety of practices, and can range from simple bonding
Human bonding
Human bonding is the process of development of a close, interpersonal relationship. It most commonly takes place between family members or friends, but can also develop among groups such as sporting teams and whenever people spend time together...
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 organizational 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 is an important factor in any environment, its focus is to specialize 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 & recognition singling out the achievements of individual employees. "How to create effective teams is a challenge in every organization" Team building can also refer to the process of selecting or creating a team from scratch.
Reasons for team building
Reasons for team building include- Improving communication
- Making the workplace more enjoyable
- Motivating a team
- Getting to know each other
- Getting everyone "onto the same page", including goal setting
- Teaching the team self-regulation strategies
- Helping participants to learn more about themselves (strengths and weaknesses)
- Identifying and utilizing the strengths of team members
- Improving team productivity
- Practicing effective collaboration with team members
What are team-building exercises and what is their purpose?
Team-building exercises consist of a variety of tasks designed to develop group members and their ability to work together effectively. There are many types of team building activities that range from kids games to games that involve novel complex tasks and are designed for specific needs. There are also more complex team building exercises that are composed of multiple exercises such as ropes courses, corporate drumming and exercises that last over several days. The purpose of team building exercises is to assist teams in becoming cohesive units of individuals that can effectively work together to complete tasks.
Types of team-building exercises
Communication exerciseThis type of team building exercise is exactly what it sounds like. Communications exercises are problem solving activities that are geared towards improving communication skills. The issues teams encounter in these exercises are solved by communicating effectively with each other.
• Goal: Create an activity which highlights the importance of good communication in team performance and/or potential problems with communication.
Problem-solving/decision-making exercise
Problem-solving/decision-making exercises focus specifically on groups working together to solve difficult problems or make complex decisions. These exercises are some of the most common as they appear to have the most direct link to what employers want their teams to be able to do.
• Goal: Give team a problem in which the solution is not easily apparent or requires the team to come up with a creative solution
Planning/adaptability exercise
These exercises focus on aspects of planning and being adaptable to change. These are important things for teams to be able to do when they are assigned complex tasks or decisions.
• Goal: Show the importance of planning before implementing a solution
Trust exercise
A trust exercise involves engaging team members in a way that will induce trust between them. They are sometimes difficult exercises to implement as there are varying degrees of trust between individuals and varying degrees of individual comfort trusting others in general.
• Goal: Create trust between team members
Subgroups of team-building exercises
- simple social activities - to encourage team members to spend time together
- group bonding sessions - company sponsored fun activities to get to know team members (sometimes intending also to inspire creativity)
- personal developmentPersonal developmentPersonal development includes activities that improve awareness and identity, develop talents and potential, build human capital and facilitates employability, enhance quality of life and contribute to the realization of dreams and aspirations...
activities - individual programs given to groups (sometimes physically challenging) - team development activities - group-dynamic games designed to help individuals discover how they approach a problem, how the team works together, and discover better methods
- psychological analysis of team roles, and training in how to work better together
(and combinations of the above)
Team interaction involves "soft" interpersonal skills
Interpersonal skills
Interpersonal skills are sometimes also referred to as people skills or communication skills. Interpersonal skills involve using skills such as active listening and tone of voice, this include delegation and leadership...
including communication, negotiation, leadership, and motivation - in contrast to technical skills directly involved with the job at hand. Depending on the type of team building, the novel tasks can encourage or specifically teach interpersonal team skills to increase team performance.
Models of team behavior
Team building generally sits within the theory and practice of organizational development. The related field of team managementTeam management
Team management refers to techniques, processes and tools for organizing and coordinating a group of individuals working towards a common goal—i.e. a team.Several well-known approaches to team management have come out of academic work...
refers to techniques, processes and tools for organizing and coordinating a team towards a common goal - as well as the inhibitors to teamwork and ways to remove, mitigate or overcome them.
Several well-known approaches to team management have come out of academic work.
- The forming-storming-norming-performingForming-storming-norming-performingThe Forming – Storming – Norming – Performing model of group development was first proposed by Bruce Tuckman in 1965, who maintained that these phases are all necessary and inevitable in order for the team to grow, to face up to challenges, to tackle problems, to find solutions, to plan work, and...
model posits four stages of new team development to reach high performance. Some team activities are designed to speed up (or improve) this process in the safe team development environment. - Belbin Team TypesBelbin Team InventoryThe Belbin Team Inventory, also called the Belbin Self-Perception Inventory, Belbin Team Role Inventory, SPI or BTRSPI,was devised by Meredith Belbin to measure preference for nine Team Roles which he identified whilst studying numerous teams at Henley Management College. The Inventory assesses how...
can be assessed to gain insight into an individual's natural behavioral tendencies in a team context, and can be used to create and develop better functioning teams. - Team SociomappingSociomappingSociomapping is a method developed for processing and visualization of relational data . It uses the data-landscape metaphor, creating a visually coded picture resembling a map that can be interpreted with similar rules as navigation in the landscape...
is an visual approach to team process and structure modelling. This model is based on social networks approach and improves the team performance by improvement of specific cooperation ties between the people.
Organizational development
In the organizational development context, a team may embark on a process of self-assessmentSelf-assessment
In social psychology, self-assessment is the process of looking at oneself in order to assess aspects that are important to one's identity. It is one of the motives that drive self-evaluation, along with self-verification and self-enhancement...
to gauge its effectiveness and improve its performance. To assess itself, a team seeks feedback
Feedback
Feedback describes the situation when output from an event or phenomenon in the past will influence an occurrence or occurrences of the same Feedback describes the situation when output from (or information about the result of) an event or phenomenon in the past will influence an occurrence or...
from group members to find out both its current strengths and weakness.
To improve its current performance, feedback from the team assessment can be used to identify gaps between the desired state and the current state, and to design a gap-closure strategy. Team development can be the greater term containing this assessment and improvement actions, or as a component of organizational development.
Another way is to allow for personality assessment amongst the team members, so that they will have a better understanding of their working style, as well as their fellow team mates.
A structured team-building plan is a good tool to implement team bonding and thus, team awareness. These may be introduced by companies that specialize in executing team-building sessions, or done internally by the human resource department.
What does a team-building consultant do?
A team-building consultant is responsible for each component of a team building intervention. He will likely interact with the team once, or for a limited number of times. During these first contacts, actively assessing the team, making recommendations, and providing activities (exercises that compose a team building intervention) for the team are the main responsibilities of the consultant. Moreover, usually a written proposal is required after the evaluation process, in which the trainer indicates how he or she would go about improving the team’s performance. Once the organization and consultant determine which recommendations to utilize (if not all), the consultant is then responsible for providing a useful intervention that will transfer back into the organizational setting. This responsibility usually requires the consultant to create a detailed plan of events, while allowing for flexibility. After the intervention has been employed, the consultant will typically evaluate the team-building program and communicate the results to the organization.See also
- Group developmentGroup developmentThe goal of most research on group development is to learn why and how small groups change over time. To do this, researchers examine patterns of change and continuity in groups over time...
- Team managementTeam managementTeam management refers to techniques, processes and tools for organizing and coordinating a group of individuals working towards a common goal—i.e. a team.Several well-known approaches to team management have come out of academic work...
- TeamworkTeamworkTeamwork is action performed by a team towards a common goal. A team consists of more than one person, each of whom typically has different responsibilities....
- Organizational psychology
- Leadership developmentLeadership developmentLeadership development refers to any activity that enhances the quality of leadership within an individual or organization. These activities have ranged from MBA style programs offered at university business schools to action learning, high-ropes courses and executive retreats.- Developing...
- Personal developmentPersonal developmentPersonal development includes activities that improve awareness and identity, develop talents and potential, build human capital and facilitates employability, enhance quality of life and contribute to the realization of dreams and aspirations...
- Office politicsOffice politicsWorkplace politics, sometimes referred to as Office politics is "the use of one's individual or assigned power within an employing organization for the purpose of obtaining advantages beyond one's legitimate authority...
- Maslow's Hierarchy