Teamwork is so important that it is virtually impossible for you to reach the heights of your capabilities or make money that you want without becoming very good at it” - Brian Tracy To discover the keys to building teamwork, you need to learn about what it means to be a team. You also need to learn about team building. These are the two concepts covered in this chapter.
- Do you really know what teamwork means?
- Exactly what is team building and how does it help in teamwork?
- What kind of teams can use the team-building exercises and learn to be a team?
A team may simply be defined as a group of people who are working together towards a common goal. These people are entitled to different tasks that make a significant contribution towards the achievement of the said goal. Teamwork normally involves the team working interdependently. This means that one person’s task is responsible for the success of the next person’s tasks. Teams are normally formed for a variety of reasons.
There are some that are set up for short-term goals while others are set for something more long-term. For instance, in an organization, you may find a team formed just to deal with a particular project. However, you may also find other teams in every single department that work together throughout to increase the productivity of their departments.
Team Building Basics
The whole idea behind team building is to forge good working relationships between the team members. This ensures that they learn how to work as a team. The team-building exercises help the players to successfully learn how to do this. These exercises can work for any team, whether at work or even in sports. Team building serves many more purposes than just helping the team to work together. These exercises also help the teammates to know each other better. This then builds rapport between them and encourages them to be supportive of one another.
Team building also helps in developing the skills of each teammate through motivation and support. The exercises also help the members to learn how to communicate with each other. This is a key aspect of any successful team. Through team building, the goals and objectives of the organization become clearer. These are defined and each team member is encouraged to participate in helping achieve them. This also helps in sporting activities, a team gets to learn what they want to achieve and how to get there.
Team building also has a number of benefits on an individual level. For instance, many people get to grow and develop their skills by being part of a team. When the team entrusts you with a role, you will find yourself trying your best not to disappoint everyone else. This helps in nurturing their abilities and honing their skills. Team building has also helped individuals discover themselves. For instance, some people may not know that they can be leaders until they are assigned such roles.
Other people find themselves when they got to know others better. For instance, knowing that your colleague is a single mom may make you more tolerant of her absenteeism. You may learn to evoke gentleness and sympathy in yourself. In most cases, organizations normally hire a team-building consultant to help with the exercises. The consultant takes time to know the team and come up with the right strategies for the particular team. This consultant is specifically trained for this. He can look at a team and come up with strategies to improve the performance of the said team.
The consultant normally makes a proposal to the organization, clearly laying out his plan of action. He states the problems with the team and what have recommendations for helping solve these problems. The organization then makes the decision to hire the consultant or not based on the proposal. Sometimes, the organization may only agree to some of the strategies but not all. The consultant is then faced with the team-building task. After the program, he has to give the necessary feedback to the organization illustrating just how effective the exercise was.
The types of teams that can participate in team-building exercises
Team building can basically work in any given team. It can work at work, school, or even when it comes to sports. One of the most popular types of teams that use these strategies is the departmental team. These are teams made up of people who do the same kind of work. For instance; you may have a team from the human resources department or even have a team from the I.T department. This type of team is normally found in work environments.
There are also management teams. These teams may comprise of managers from various departments. Even as leaders, these people need to learn how to work together for the overall success of the company. Team building also helps the managers to become better leaders of their teams. The skills acquired can be passed down to the team by the leader. There can also be team building for mixed or cross-functional groups.
These are usually teams that are made up of people from different departments in an organization these departments have to have some common ground. For instance, you can have departments that deal with people such as customer care and human resources team building will build all the members of the team and enable them to cooperate and be more productive. Special project teams can also use team-building exercises.
These are teams that may be set up for just short-term goals. If they successfully complete the team-building program, such teams will be more effective. In addition, the team may be able to complete the project in a shorter time than anticipated. This all comes from learning how to work well with each other. Self-directed teams that comprise of people from different fields also use team-building exercises. They take the program to help themselves grow as leaders.
Excerpted from the book Team Builder Bible.
This excerpt has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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