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Introduction:

When human beings work together, they can produce a piece of work that is superior to the work of individuals toiling alone. In any situation requiring the real time combinationof multiple skills, experiences, and judgments, a team inevitably gets better results than acollection of individuals operating within confined job roles and responsibilities. Teams aremore flexible than large organizational groupings because they can be more quicklyassembled, deployed, re-focused and disbanded. The record of team performance speaks for itself. Teams invariably contribute significant achievements in organizations involved in business, charity, schools, government and of course the military.

Team Building:

Team building

refers to the process of establishing and developing a greater sense of collaboration and trust between team members. Interactive exercises, team assessments, andgroup discussions enable groups to cultivate this greater sense of teamwork.

The Goal of Team Building:

The goal of team building is to help create better-focused and effective teams that areresult oriented

Characteristics of Good Team Building:

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High level of interdependence among team members

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Team leader has good people skills and is committed to team approach

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Each team member is willing to contribute

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Team develops a relaxed climate for communication

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Team members develop a mutual trust

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Team and individuals are prepared to take risks

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Team is clear about goals and establishes targets

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Team member roles are defined

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Team members know how to examine team and individual errors without personalattacks

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Team has capacity to create new ideas

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Each team member knows he can influence the team agenda

Team Building Essentials:

A team building success is when your team can accomplish something muchbigger and work more effectively than a group of the same individuals working on theirown. You have a strong synergy of individual contributions, but there are two criticalfactors in building a high performance team.

The first factor in team effectiveness is the diversity of skills and personalities.When people use their strengths in full, but can compensate for each other's weaknesses.When different personality types balance and complement each other.The other critical element of teamwork success is that all the team efforts aredirected towards the same clear goals, the team goals. This relies heavily on goodcommunication in the team and the harmony in member relationships.Here are some additional team building ideas, techniques.

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Make sure that the team goals are very clear and completely understood andaccepted by each team member.

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Make sure there is complete clarity in who is responsible for what and avoidoverlapping authority.

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Build trust with your team members by spending one-on-one time in anatmosphere of honesty and openness. Be loyal to your employees, if you expectthe same.

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Allow your office team members build trust and openness between each other inteam building activities and events.

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For issues that rely heavily on the team consensus and commitment, try toinvolve the whole team in the decision making process.

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When managing teams, make sure there are no blocked lines of communications andyou and your people are kept fully informed.

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Be careful with interpersonal issues. Recognize them early and deal with them infull.

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Do not miss opportunities to empower your employees. Say thank you or showappreciation of an individual team player's work.

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Do not limit yourself to negative feedback. Be fare. Whenever there is anopportunity, give positive feedback as well.Finally, though teamwork and team building can offer many challenges, the pay off froma high performance team is well worth it.

Creating Teams:

The start point of a team is no easy task. Doing so requires not only having the rightcombination of skilled people, but also individuals whom are willing to work together withothers as a team.

Stages of Team Building

Stage 1: Forming (Awareness)

It will thus be seen that awareness of each other is the starting point of team building.It invariably must lead to the activity of setting goals and, thereby, give meaning to the team'sexistence. If goals are sea and individuals in the teams are not committed to them, it is onceagain a meaningless exercise. Therefore, in the overall theme of awareness, commitment tothe goals and acceptance of each other constitute the task and relationship-oriented behaviors.

Stage 2: Storming (Conflict)

Total agreement on goals in the initial stages is impossibility. Therefore, the generaltheme in this stage is conflict resolution and clarification of tasks, and promoting a sense of belonging. This is positively the most crucial stage of team building. New teams tend to ratethemselves high on each outcome as positive outcomes of success and expectations are veryhigh. As the team members spend time together, the realities of interpersonal behaviour, goalsetting differences, differing approaches to the problems etc all lead to conflicts. If they getresolved, the team sails, otherwise it sinks.

Stage 3: Norming (Cooperation)

The successful completion of Stage 2 has to yield place to cooperation. As eachindividual is understood, goals clarified and accepted or modified, contribution sought andwelcomed, strengths in each individual recognized, group cohesiveness develops and normsare laid as to how the task will be accomplished, the manner in which the team will behave,and the rules and regulations it will follow. As all these are arrived at through consensus;cooperation becomes the central theme with involvement and support functioning the task andrelationship behavior. Norming also implies the expected roles of each individual in the teamobtained through consensus.

Stage 4: Performing (Results)

If the above three stages have been successfully undertaken, getting results nowremains a formality. The central theme in this stage focuses on performing with problemsolving and leading to achievement and pride constituting the task and relationship oriented behaviours. An approach based on good leadership can be used to develop teams at this stage.

Stage 5: Adjourning (Separation)

As brought out many teams come together for specific assignments and then disperseafter the task is accomplished. In fact, since a very high performance is expected from teams,one cannot hope to sustain this level indefinitely. As such, it would often be advisable toadjourn the team when the mission is completed and recreate another when the need arises. Incase of ad-hoc teams the adjournment may be abrupt while in others itmay be in several phases.