"We are going
to build a team". Replace the word "team" with the word
"house" - or any other noun that can be built and will take more than
just a few minutes - and most sensible people will want to adopt a structured
approach. The same goes for successful team building.
Planning
Plans will be drawn
up and approved. People will receive copies of the plan and efforts will be
made to ensure everyone understands it. Progress will be monitored against the
plan. Lessons will be learned along the way that will be used to improve the next
phase. Anything less will lead at best to mediocrity and underachievement.
Team Building
Shouldn't Be Ad Hoc
Why is it that team
building is so often treated in an ad hoc manner? You wouldn't take bricks and
mortar out, show them a good time and expect them to rearrange themselves into
something better just because they had a nice break. So why expect a group of
people to do any better?
The only answer to
that question with any merit is that bricks can't think and people can. Which
sounds like management by abdication. Or perhaps management by trusting to
luck. It certainly doesn't sound like a structured approach.
More Than Just Fun
So if taking people
off for some fun is not team building - what is it? Traditional away day
options are team bonding exercises - and that is different. Take a group
quad-biking, paint-balling etc and it will help bond the participants through a
shared experience. You can even justify its use of some of the training budget
if you like by claiming it has helped them develop as a team. Just don't
believe it - or you'll be disappointed to discover that while the group is
closer it is no more effective.
A Structured
Process
No - if you want to
build a team rather than just bond the individuals closer, you need a
structured process. You need to decide before you start what improvements you
want and can realistically expect the team to achieve. Next you can decide how
long it will take to achieve those results. Often, fun remains a key objective
for such a session. If it is the only one - or is only combined with a desire
to get the team to become closer - organising a team bonding session is an
ideal solution. If, however, your expectations are set higher than that - then
you need something more structured.
Key Characteristics
of Team Building
So what are the key
characteristics of a genuine team building session? I suggest the
following 7 steps will lead to team building success:
1. Have definite
session and longer-term goals and know how the session goals lead to the longer
term ones.
2. Use an engaging and
varied base activity that involves each participant in something that he or she
enjoys doing.
3. Use an activity
that achieves that engagement while having genuine parallels to the workplace
and has relevance with the session goals.
4. Select an activity
that requires the same kind of skill sets and team approaches that are needed
at work - albeit one that is removed from the work itself.
5. Consider using an
independent (internal or external) facilitator - to allow all levels to join in
as equals and to avoid it feeling like a "sermon from above".
6. Debrief using a
predefined process that highlights the workplace parallels and allows the
participants to extract their own learning rather than be preached to.
7. Use a proven
mechanism to transfer the learning back to the workplace, ideally integrated
within the debriefing process itself.
If none of these
seem important, you are probably looking at a pure fun bonding session. Whether
that is a trip to the nearest (or furthest!) bar or something that offers the
group an experience that all of its members will enjoy doesn't matter too much.
But if any of them
do seem important, then I'd suggest that they all are. If one or more are
missing then your team building session will be compromised. And that's a word
that sits well alongside mediocrity and under achievement.
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