Team building
Team building refers to a range of activities and strategies aimed at improving the performance, cohesion, and effectiveness of a team. The goal is to enhance how team members interact, communicate, and collaborate, ultimately leading to better overall performance and a more positive work environment.
The team or work group is the primary unit in the organization, and there is an increasing reliance on project teams, task force groups and committee to accomplish organization goals. French and Bell have opined that ‘probably the most important single group of interventions in the OD are the team-building activities, the goals of which are the improvement and increased effectiveness of various teams within the organization.
Definitions
According to Katzenbach and Smith
“The process of creating and nurturing teams to achieve specific goals, where team members are encouraged to collaborate, communicate, and work together in a cohesive manner to reach their objectives.”
According to Patrick Lencioni
“Team building is about addressing and resolving the common dysfunctions of teams, such as lack of trust, fear of conflict, and lack of commitment, to create a more effective and high-performing team.”
According to Bruce Tuckman
“Team building involves guiding a group through the stages of forming, storming, norming, and performing, to ultimately reach a stage where the team functions effectively and achieves its goals.”
Features of Team Builsing
Effective team building involves a variety of features and practices designed to enhance the cohesion, performance, and overall functionality of a team. Here are some key features:
1. Clear Objectives
Team building activities are designed with specific goals in mind, such as improving communication, fostering trust, or enhancing problem-solving skills.
2. Structured Activities
Activities are carefully planned and executed to address particular team dynamics or developmental needs. These can include workshops, exercises, games, or retreats.
3. Enhanced Communication
Team building encourages open and honest communication, which helps in breaking down barriers and improving interpersonal interactions.
4. Trust Building
Activities designed to build trust among team members, such as trust falls or sharing personal stories, help in creating a more supportive and collaborative environment.
5. Collaboration and Cooperation
Activities often involve working together to achieve a common goal, which helps in improving teamwork and cooperative skills.
6. Conflict Resolution
Effective team building includes components that address and resolve conflicts, helping teams to handle disagreements constructively.
7. Role Clarity
Team building helps clarify each member’s role within the team, ensuring that everyone understands their responsibilities and how they contribute to the team’s goals.
8. Feedback Mechanisms
Providing and receiving feedback is a key feature of team building, allowing members to learn and grow from their experiences.
9. Motivation and Engagement
Engaging and motivating team members through various activities helps in boosting morale and maintaining high levels of enthusiasm.
10. Diverse Activities
A range of activities is often used to address different aspects of team dynamics, including problem-solving, creativity, and strategic thinking.
11. Inclusive Participation
Effective team building ensures that all members are included and actively participate in activities, fostering a sense of belonging and contribution.
12. Evaluation and Reflection
After team-building activities, teams often engage in reflection and evaluation to assess the effectiveness of the exercises and identify areas for improvement.
13. Leadership and Support
Strong leadership is crucial in facilitating team-building activities and ensuring that the process is productive and aligned with team goals.
14. Cultural Sensitivity
Activities are designed with an understanding of and respect for the diverse backgrounds and perspectives of team members.
15. Continuous Improvement
Team building is not a one-time event but a continuous process of improvement and development to adapt to changing team dynamics and organizational needs.
Process
Various steps of team building process are not one shot action; rather they are repetitive and cyclical as indicated by arrows in the following figure:
1. Problem solving
At this stage generally most of the members come forward with their arguments as to what the real problems are. The problem can be organizational problems, group problems or even personal problems. In problem identification the emphases should be on consensus. Much of the problems may be solved through effective communication and training sessions.
2. Examining Differences
The perception of people on an issue differs because of their differing backgrounds, such as their value systems, personality and attitudes. The perception may be brought to conformity through the process of exercise on perception which involves a number of psychological exercises particularly on perceptual differences. The role of communication is important in this context because it will help clarifying the actual problems to the members.
3. Giving and receiving feedback
Often members report about the painful feelings that they have at the time of evaluation of their feelings. The discussion should continue until all members of the team have commented. The feedback should be given to the members about their feelings, about the issue, the way people talk about the issue, the staying with the topic or going off on tangents, who was talking more or who was talking less, who was trying to resolve the differences etc. such feedback generally provides members to evaluate the values but at the same time, also provides opportunity to understand themselves. The concept of Johari window may also be applied. This suggests that even people are not fully aware of themselves.
4. Developing interactive skills
The basic objective of this process is to increase the ability among the people as to how they should interact with others and engage in constructive behavior. At the time of discussion of feedback, people themselves take assignments to increase specific constructive behaviors and decrease specific negative behaviors. If this process is adopted several times, there is a strong possibility that members may learn constructive behaviours and leave negative behaviours. This is quite helpful in developing teamwork.
5. Follow-up action
This is the final stage in team building. At this stage, the total team is convened to review what has been learned and to identify what the next step should be Follow-up action is also helps in overcoming in overcoming the drawback involved at the initial stages of team building. It involves deciding who will take care of each area of the team’s responsibilities, and who will be responsible for team projects in a group hat has not developed as satisfactory division of responsibility, clarifying and settling differences in perception concerning responsibility and authority in the team, with complex division of responsibility and authority among members.
These attempts bring cooperation and supportive feelings among people involved in the functioning.
Contributions
1. It improves the organization’s problem solving and decision making ability.
2. It helps in developing effective interpersonal relationships by stimulating the group members for that.
3. It helps developing communication within the group and inter-group and overcoming many psychological barriers that block communication flow.
4. Team building fosters a collaborative environment where members work together more effectively towards common goals.
Limitations
1. It focuses only on work teams, and other major organizational variables, such as technology, structure etc. are not given adequate attention.
2. Team building becomes a complicated exercise when there is frequent change in team members. New member may find it difficult to adjust with the team because of his confusion over his roles in terms of task performance and building good relationships.
