Team Building

Team members must work together to be efficient, likewise, co-operation is needed among all the teams that make up the whole organization. Higher level managers need to incorporate all these groups into one collaboration group. To do this, managers often depend heavily on team building for both individual teams and large groups. Team building motivates team members to examine how they work together, identify their weaknesses, and develop more effective ways of co-operating. The goal is to make the team more efficient. High-performance teams accomplish their tasks, learn how to solve problems and enjoy satisfying interpersonal relationships.

The Process

The team building process follows the pattern: A unique form of team building involves one of several varieties of “wilderness experiences”. In these courses, managers participate in week long adventures such as trekking, rafting and outdoor obstacle courses. The physical challenge to survive is significant and many participants believe the experience prepares them for psychological survival in the corporate world. Creativity and risk taking are endorsed, as are communication skills. Trust is vital, and groups recognise the importance of problem solving skills. Team members learn to balance one another’s strength and weaknesses, and strong bonds of caring often appear among members. A range of organizations from small to large have used wilderness experience with good results.

Skills useful in Team Building

The facilitators who aid the development of effective teams need to apply a broad range of skills, including consultation skills (diagnosing, contracting, designing change), interpersonal skills (trust building, coaching and listening), research skills (planning and conducting a study and evaluating results) and presentational skills (public speaking and report preparation). Two additional and closely related skills stand out as important to success process, consultation and feedback. These are skills that both team leaders and team members need.

Process Consultation

In contrast to the roles of experts (who share sophisticated technical information and problem solvers (who define problems and suggest solutions), team building calls for yet another role that of process consultant. Process consultation is a set of activities that help others focus on what is currently happening around them. In fact, the process consultant holds up a “mirror” to team members and helps them see themselves in action. The intent of process consultation is simple; to help team members perceive, understand and react constructively to current Behavioral events. Process consultants or team facilitators encourage employees to scrutinize the intended versus their actual roles within the team, the ways in which the team discusses and solves problems. The use and abuse of power and authority and the explicit and implicit communication patterns

Process consultants are helpers, representing several key facilitating Behaviors. They observe team meetings, recording conversational patterns and non-verbal Behaviors. They ask inquiring questions designed to help others identify problems. They resist “owning” the team’s problems, “taking them off the hook”, or giving expert advice. If necessary, they confront individuals by asking them to analyse their Behavior and its consequences or to explore new alternatives. At the same time, the process consultant is attempting to help other people learn to help themselves. In other words, the goal is to create independence in team members so that they can more effectively think and act for themselves.

Feedback

Members need feedback so that they have constructive data on which to base decisions. Feedback motivates them to understand how they are seen by others within their team and to take self—correcting action. Following is of example, of a feedback exercise in one team building programme. Participants are separated into two groups representing two different viewpoints that are present in the team. Both groups are asked to develop answers to the following questions:

• What characteristics best describe our group?
• What characteristics best describe the other group?
• How will the other group describe us?

After the separate groups have prepared their answers, they assemble and present their answers to the other group. They give concrete feedback about impressions each group has of the other, and major misunderstandings are often uncovered. In this presentation, no arguments are allowed. Questions 7 are accepted only to clarify what the other group is saying. The groups again are separated to discuss two other questions:

• How did these misunderstandings occur?
• What can we do to correct them?

Any team can use process consultation and feedback for its self-development. The need for continuous improvement is a cornerstone of total quality management programs, and a focus on teams will be a structural element of many organizations as they move into the future.