Team building is a management strategy used to boost workgroup productivity and effectiveness through a variety of activities. Forming an effective team requires a lot of skills, analysis, and observation. Here, achieving the organization’s goals and objectives is the sole objective. Team building can also be defined as the process of turning a group of individual contributing employees into a cohesive team.
Team building is a successful method for firms seeking to establish an effective corporate culture in which people look forward to going to work, trust one another, and interact effectively. Employing skillful and considerate workers is only one aspect of building a strong team. Once employees have been hired, it can be beneficial to consider the next step of concentrating on how to bring them together and turn them into a successful team. In this article, we go through the process of team building, the advantages and disadvantages of team building, and offer some suggestions for team building exercises.
You’re probably asking now, “How to Build a Great Team?”
It takes a lot of talent and mental fortitude to build a strong team. Typically, firms employ managers based on their specialization in team-building abilities. The manager in charge of team building must be able to identify the team member’s strengths and limitations and put together the ideal group of individuals with various skill sets. He needs to concentrate on building trust and good interpersonal relationships among the team members.
The person in charge of the team building needs to explain to the team members what the organization’s goals and objectives are. To guide the team toward achieving the organizational goals, he must also clearly define each member’s job.
With the aid of various team-building activities, the manager must promote engagement and communication among the team members as well as stress reduction.
Activities for Team Building
When it comes to activities now, it can be something that the company can do on its own or you may hire an external facilitator. You can begin with, for instance, a department picnic or company picnic made up of a few people and take a day off work to visit a neighboring park. Fire up the grill and ask staff to bring a dish to pass. The idea is to get everyone together so you can spend some time talking over some nice food. The purpose of team building is defeated if staff eat lunch alone in their own offices.
You can also fund events that bring your staff together for entertainment. Volleyball/soccer games, comedy club outings, river cruises on passenger boats, and painting at a painting studio, all suit the description. Any activity or event that your team may engage in together can strengthen their bonds. Remember, it doesn’t have to be expensive.
Utilizing External Facilitation
When using an outside facilitator for team building, teams take part in activities that are planned to aid in the employees coming together as a cohesive unit. Typically, the facilitator designs team-building exercises or sessions in collaboration with a group of workers. Before engaging in a real job in the office, your team can practice effective teamwork in a laid-back, low-pressure setting with team-building activities.
A variety of activities, such as icebreakers, discussion points, games, cooperative tasks, and group brainstorming, may be used during these sessions. In these situations, the external facilitator’s job is to support you in achieving your objectives. You ensure that the results continue after the event, make sure to integrate the event into your regular job.
You can use the following team-building activities in your company:
Icebreaker games: Games such as truth or dare are terrific team-building activities for new employees to get to know one another and have a good time. With the use of these games, strangers on the job can get to know one another better, establish a connection, and discover more about one another. Therefore, icebreakers can be a useful team-building activity.
Initiatives for social responsibility: Participating in charitable activity as a team is a great way to team building among members and give back to the neighborhood. Giving back to the community is also a terrific way to enhance the company’s reputation.
Talent shows: Employees often have special talents that might be discovered through activities like talent shows. Talent shows are usually more time-consuming, but they can show off employees’ unusual or undiscovered skills, make team-building exercises more enjoyable, and unearth some transferable skills.
Team Building Process
Building a team is a step-by-step process. It is a systematic procedure designed to bring about the desired change in the company. Teams are typically created for a specific task or project and are typically created for a limited period.
| Steps in the Team Building Process | |
| 1. Determine the Need for Team Building | The manager must first assess what a team needs to complete a specific assignment. Before assembling a team, it should determine the task’s goal, the necessary talents, and its difficulty. |
| 2. Define the goals and the necessary skill set. | The organization’s objectives and the talents required to achieve them are then listed. |
| 3. Considering Team Roles | The manager takes into account some factors, including how people interact with one another, their duties and responsibilities, strengths and limitations, as well as the makeup and suitability of potential team members. |
| 4. Choose a team-building strategy. | Now, to achieve successful team building, the manager must have a thorough understanding of the operational framework. He must personally confirm the goals, responsibilities, time frame, resource availability, training, information flow, feedback, and team-building processes. |
| 5. Create a Team of Individuals | At this point, the people are gathered to create a team. Each team member receives training on his or her responsibilities and functions. |
| 6. The Rules Should be Set Up and Shared | There includes a discussion of the guidelines for team decision-making, meeting times, and member reporting. To foster honest and healthy communication within the team, people are encouraged to express their opinions and ask questions. |
| 7. Determine People’s Strengths | Different team-building activities are carried out to highlight the talents of the participants. It also helps the team members become more familiar with one another’s strengths and weaknesses. |
| 8. Participate in the Team | The manager must now join the team as a team member rather than a supervisor. It’s essential to treat each person fairly and to help them understand their value to the team. As a team leader, mentor, and role model, the manager should be viewed positively by team members. |
| 9. Track Performance | The following phase is to assess the team’s overall performance and productivity. It entails identifying weaknesses and their causes of them. |
| 10. Set up meetings. | One of the most important measures is to periodically organize purposeful meetings to talk about team performance, task-related issues, and the next course of action. |
| 11. Dissolve the Team | Finally, the manager must assess the outcomes and give employees praise for their accomplishments and contributions. After achieving the goal for which it was founded, the team is finally dispersed. |
The Advantages of Team Building
A recent survey by the Team Building Hub found that 73% of workers wished their firm would spend more money on team building. This demonstrates not only how team-building exercises may increase morale, and communication, and encourage greater creativity among your team members, but also how much employees look forward to participating in team-building exercises.
1. Identify Strengths and Limitations:
Team-building activities can help members of a group identify their strengths and weaknesses. Such an analysis cannot be carried out in daily ordinary work. Managers can create productive teams by utilizing these qualities.
2. Directly Related to Vision and Mission:
Team-building exercises highlight the significance of the team in helping the organization realize its goals. It helps people very clearly understand the organization’s goals, objectives, mission, and vision and inspires them to make contributions.
3. Collaboration and Communication are Improved:
Team building exercises improve the relationships between team members. It facilitates interpersonal comfort and familiarity. Between team members, collaboration fosters understanding and mutual trust.
4. Establishes Responsibilities and Roles:
It clarifies and defines each team member’s job. Additionally, each member is assigned a specific task to do, which motivates the group to work well together.
5. Promotes Problem-Solving and Creative Thinking:
People are encouraged to share their ideas, viewpoints, and solutions as part of a team. It encourages thinking and allows them to express their creativity. When co-workers collaborate, they can come up with brilliant ideas (Ferlic,2008). Innovations are more likely to be fostered by organizations that support public venues where creative people can gather and engage. This usually helps team members become more critical thinkers and produces fresh ideas that progress a business.
6. Increases Morale and Trust:
The company fosters a sense of value among its staff by holding team-building exercises. It motivates them to hone their abilities and develop solid interpersonal bonds, which eventually raises the team’s morale and trust. An effective team requires trust. Knowing each other and developing mutual trust is essential for workplace collaboration.
7. Facilitates Delegation:
The managers believe that assigning the work to a group rather than a single person is more appropriate. Therefore, team building enables managers to assign tasks to the team effectively and appropriately.
8. Improves Efficiency:
If the team is well-formed and all of the team members collaborate to accomplish the goals, everyone’s productivity increases. Increasing the team’s and the organization’s production as a result. Employees acquire new skills through team-building exercises and integrate them into their existing set of skills. It improves a team’s performance, increases their efficiency, and finally helps them finish projects on schedule.
Disadvantages of Team Building
Building a team is a difficult task. The goals of the organization can be accomplished through a high-performance team. An ineffective team, however, might result in the organization’s time and resources being wasted.
As a result, we may also state that team building has several negative repercussions, including the following:
1. Creates Conflict:
The team members occasionally lack communication and coordination. This causes disagreements and conflicts among the team, which lowers productivity and efficiency. Such conflict management is time-consuming.
2. Gives room for social loafers or ineffective team members:
Some team members occasionally don’t contribute much to the group’s performance. These people are regarded as freeriding team members. The team demonstrates that they are ineffective and less productive. Social loafers underperform compared to their potential on a given task, thus hurting the performance of the group. This happens as a result of their tendency to contribute minimally to team projects and adopt a carefree attitude toward the tasks allotted to them.
3. Possibly Causes Non-Cooperation:
Each person is unique from the others. The team’s members can lack harmony and cooperation. This lack of cooperation among team members wastes resources and lowers the effectiveness of the team as a whole.
4. Evaluation of Individual Performance is Difficult:
A team’s success or failure depends on the outcome of team development for the organization. Typically, the company rewards the work of the entire team while ignoring the unique contributions of each member.
5. Involves Cost:
Team building exercises need time and money. Assuring coordination, balance, feedback, decision-making, and conflict management within the created teams also takes a lot of time, money, and resources.
6. Raises Issues of Accountability and Credibility:
It might be challenging to pinpoint the cause of failure. On occasion, team members will assume responsibility for their job, blaming the other members for any unfavorable results.
Conclusion
To effectively accomplish the organization’s objectives, team building is the act of fostering relationships between members of the group. Team-building exercises can be as informal and relaxed as sharing a meal or as formally organized as a session facilitated by a facilitator.
Productive teams often outperform individuals in terms of output.
Reference:
Ferlic, K. (2008). The organization’s most valuable asset. Retrieved fromhttp://organizationalcreativity.info/most_valuable_asset.htm
Kelin Zvomuya is a consultant at Human Capital Experts
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