Business Team Building

What are your tips for business team building?

Building teams within a business is not an easy task and many people go about it the wrong way. Here are some tips for effective business team building.

First of all, team building must be a way of life. It should also be a specific responsibility of all the members of a particular team. It should be a continuous process, not something which is done and then forgotten about. The idea of team building is to develop and clear and unique identity for the team that all members of the team are committed to. When you do a team building session it should be focused on the ambitions and the needs of each of the team members, making sure that it recognises the unique contribution that each individual makes to achieving the goals of the group. Good team building is created with an awareness of the potential of the whole team as a unit. It should also be results oriented and importantly, it should be enjoyable.

There are also things that team building should not be. First of all, team building can not be a short term initiative, being the current flavour of the months and then discarded, in particular the lessons from it. A team building program should not be imposed on people without regard to their feelings. Team building efforts mustn't be spasmodic, nor should it be only reserved for particular members of a team, it should be for everyone. No-one should use team building as an excuse for not being able to meet their personal responsibilities. Team building is also counterproductive is it is a process where the actions involved are clearly contradictory to the intentions of the group. Finally, team building must not be seen by any member of the team as a chore.

Ultimately, the purpose of business team building is to convert a group of individuals into a team. A group of individuals exhibit little communication between them, and rarely support each other enough. Groups also exhibit a marked lack of vision, and you will often find too many exclusive cliques within a group. A feature of a group is that the whole that they create is frequently less than the sum of the parts. The group insists on conformity yet often leaves its new members to find their own way.

If you are in a team you'll find plenty of opportunities for discussion and feel plenty of support. There will be a lot of openness and honesty, and you will feel that the whole represented by the team is more than the sum of its individual parts. New members are shown existing norms and the team leader will make sure team members are committed to their decisions.