Team Building is a method for increasing the efficiency of a work group.

 

Too often, managers employ vague, misunderstood words like "team building" as a panacea for slow work unit performance. The development in popularity and implementation of team building has coincided with a shift in the public's image of work as a result of collaborative efforts rather than discrete jobs on an assembly line. Field research findings, such as those obtained by the American Productivity & Quality Center during their multi-organizational white-collar productivity improvement field research efforts, clearly demonstrate the importance of effective team structures to the knowledge/service worker's overall performance effectiveness.

Building a team takes a lot more effort than simply acknowledging the interdependence of workers and work units. Instead, it necessitates numerous carefully regulated processes and is a cyclical process. The team-building process described in this article allows members of a work group to observe and analyse behaviours and activities that impede their effectiveness, as well as develop and implement solutions to recurring issues.

While the overall goal of team building is to create a more successful work group, the precise goals of the process will be determined primarily by the evaluation of data acquired during the data gathering phase. Typically, team building aims to address at least one of the three challenges listed below:

1. A lack of clear objectives and expected results: 

Interview data from work group members frequently reveals that their performance is mostly driven by their own (and frequently competing) performance goals. In that case, the team-building model can be used to develop overall work group goals, which influence both individual and group effort and behaviour, and, as a result, performance outcomes at both the individual and group levels.

2. Interpersonal conflict and distrust: A lack of trust, support, and communication not only slows down a group's capacity to get work done on a daily basis, but it also prevents the group from resolving issues that naturally develop as it makes decisions regarding its future endeavours.

Focusing on work challenges and improving interpersonal skills is one strategy to solve this. This will allow the team to operate more interdependently and effectively to complete the assignment. In other words, rather than being obtained from evaluations directed at individual personalities within the group, interpersonal data would be derived from the work context itself. A Win-Win method is a determined attempt to find common requirements and desired outcomes.

3. A lack of clear leadership and roles: Duplications of effort, of course, result in sub-optimal productivity. However, if initial interviews with members of the work unit reveal misunderstanding about duties, the issues that surface may extend beyond task-specific issues. They may raise questions about who leads the group, who feels empowered to act, how power is wielded, and what interpersonal and inter-group relationships underpin the group's effectiveness. When these issues arise, the team-building model employs group meetings to discuss and clarify members' roles and responsibilities, both mandatory and optional.

In the team-building process, who are the "players"?

On the surface, the term "team" connotes a bunch of interchangeable, equal-status individuals. In reality, most workplace teams have a supervisor or manager who is responsible for the group's performance and leadership. As a result, in a successful team building endeavor, the team leader plays a vital and slightly distinct function than other members. The leader's support is critical because if he or she does not see and acknowledge the necessity for team building, other members of the work team are unlikely to be enthusiastic about the idea.