The Team Building Directory
Advice and information about all things team building.
Whether you are an organisation, or a professional responsible for facilitating the team building process of a team or group, the following tips are ensured to give you some new ideas on how to accelerate your team building initiatives:
A common vision for all team members is essential for team building and organisational success. Spend time visioning as a team - what you want to create and where you want to go. This visioning time should also enable you to celebrate your current successes!
Ask Yourself: How clear is our vision? Do all team members hold the same vision?
Ensure that your organisational/project
and program goals are understood and supported by all team members. All
team members need to understand how their efforts are feeding into the
larger objectives.
Ask Yourself: Do all team members know what role they play in supporting
our larger team/organisational goals? Is everyone clear on what those
goals are?
One of the main challenges for organisations
and groups to move ahead to where they really want to be is due to a lack
of clarity on individual roles and responsibilities. Clarifying these
roles can help in supporting and achieving your common vision and goals.
Ask yourself: "How clear is our staff in understanding their specific
roles? Their specific responsibilities? Where do roles and responsibilities
overlap between individual team members? Where do roles and responsibilities
overlap with other departments.
Supervisors and managers play a key role
in "keeping the learning alive". Ensure that supervisors, managers
and owners are following up with staff regarding what their needs are,
and how team building efforts can be enhanced. Managers also play a key
role in ensuring that the learning from team building initiatives is brought
back to the office.
Ask yourself: What systems do we currently have in place to ensure that
the learning is sustained? Can we discuss this in staff meetings? Do we
have a coaching program in place?
Team building can be fun and challenging,
supporting teams to reach their highest potential. Ensure that participants
are engaged and challenged through the process. Consider bringing in an
experienced external facilitator to support your efforts, and even run
a train-the-trainer program with your staff.
Ask Yourself: What types of activities or exercises would work best for
our team members? What are the topics of relevance for them?
Holding team building sessions in the
office can be disruptive and distracting. The lure of email, voice mail
and urgent items often take precedence to a full team in-office experience.
Reduce everyday distractions by holding team building sessions outside
of the office.
Ask Yourself: What type of environment would our staff team benefit from?
Some organisations prefer a more "corporate" formal team building
session, while others embrace nature and the outdoors.
Create an action plan to make the team
building part of your everyday work or life. Often retreat days or team
building programs have few links with everyday business or organisational
objectives. Ensure that when designing the program you create links to
the organisation or to everyday life so that participants can "bring
the learning home". This can be done by building into the program
formal action planning time, and having managers follow up during regular
staff meetings. Coaching can be leveraged to keep the "learning alive"
after team building events. Research whether individual, team or group
coaching will work best for your organisation.
Ask Yourself: What can we do to support and sustain individual and team
action planning? What current systems do we have to revisit the action
plans? Some examples may include staff meetings, manager check-ins, internal/external
coaching.
Creating a group or organisational context
where communication is open, and individual team members feel comfortable
bringing their needs up, will make teambuilding efforts more focused and
productive.
Find out exactly what team members are looking for to enhance their work
and efforts before the team building event. This can be done by the facilitator
and/or the team building committee, through email questionnaires, focus
groups, or individual meetings.
One of the most common pitfalls of team building initiatives is that it
does not match the needs of the team. Ensure you invest enough time before
the event itself to assess what team members really want.
Ask Yourself: What are the top three priorities for our team members?
What is the best way to find this out from individual members?
Once a year team building programs can
do a lot for boosting morale on the short-term, but ask yourself, "What
would it be like if we did something more often?". Imagine the results!
Using the same facilitator over successive programs can often give added
traction to the event. Trust and understanding of the team is usually
higher each successive event, when using the same facilitator.
Ask Yourself: What amount of time can we commit to team building efforts
in our organisation this year? What will that look like?
Most importantly, team building initiatives
should be fun and engaging for all staff members. They should be relevant
and meaningful for the team. Design with the facilitator(s) what structure
and topics will give your team the most leverage.
Ask Yourself: What would fun look like for us, given our organisational
culture and philosophy?
Look to integrate some of these ideas and systems into your next team
building initiative, whether it is a retreat, team coaching, or a workshop,
to build a more extraordinary, sustained, productive team.
Copyright - Jennifer Britton. All Rights
Reserved.
For more information, please visit us at: The "Biz" Toolkit Blog: http://biztoolkit.blogspot.com
Team Coaching: http://www.groupcoachingessentials.com/pages/team-coaching
Email: jennifer@potentialsrealized.com
