Straightforward    Business

4a Team building
Reading & speaking Vocabulary: word building
1 Work in pairs. Discuss the questions. 1 Complete the table with words from the text.
1 In the classroom, what do you like and dislike noun adjective negative adjective
about working in groups?
decisiveness (1) indecisive
2 Describe a team that you have been a member
of (eg musical group, sports team, study group). cooperation (2) uncooperative
How well did you function as a team? What organization (3) disorganized
challenges, if any, did you face? communication (4) uncommunicative
3 How can managers improve the efficiency of
motivation (5) demotivating/ -ed
their teams?
creativity (6) uncreative
2 Read the blog page and answer the questions.
1 Which adjective best describes the blogger’s 2 Complete the sentences with a word from the table.
attitude?
1 I often feel working on my own. I’m much happier
angry depressed frustrated
in a team.
2 Complete the blogger’s last sentence.
2 I know I’m a very person, so I’m happy to let
3 Read the blog page again and say if sentences other people come up with the ideas.
1–6 are true (T) or false (F). Correct the false 3 I’m not very and it takes me a long time to make
answers. up my mind.
4 The biggest problem I have is with the of my time.
1 The blogger is probably a good employee. 5 I have a personality type: I know my
2 All the company’s sales representatives were responsibilities and I follow the rules.
asked to go to the ‘Away-Day’. 6 I’m not very first thing in the morning, but I start
3 In the blogger’s opinion, the ‘Developmental talking after my first coffee.
Away-Day’ was a success.
4 The blogger did not have anything in common 3 Work in pairs. Change the sentences in exercise 2 so that
with the members of his group. they are true for you.
5 A number of people found reasons to leave early.
6 The blogger suddenly felt ill.
Functional language: explaining
4 Work in groups. Plan two activities that would
encourage people to work well as a team. reasons (so that, in order to, in case,
otherwise)
1 Work in pairs. Look at the examples of so that, in order
to, in case and otherwise in the blog page. Then complete
the grammar box with the appropriate linkers.

Use so that, in order to, in case and otherwise to

explain the reasons for your actions.
Use (1) to talk about what will happen if you
don’t do something.
Use (2) to talk about a situation you want to
be prepared for.
Use (3) and (4) to talk about why
you do something.
Use (5) (6) and (7) + clause.
Use (8) + infinitive.

See Language Reference page 44

1 Straightforward Upper Intermediate Second edition © Macmillan Publishers Limited 2012

 Straightforward    Business

Team building 4a

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26 September, 12.37AM Jump to comments

Why I hate team-building days

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I like to think of myself as a good team member. In my last appraisal, I was
congratulated on my co-operative approach to work. I get on well with
most of my colleagues and we have no problems working together. Our
‘team leader’, as she is called, is liked and respected for both her organized
management and her communicative skills. Our department is a happy one.
But not when it comes to our annual ‘Developmental Away-Day’.
This year, the company’s entire sales force was invited to an out-of-town
File Edit View Favourites business centre
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called
EditLinks‘Let’s
View Get Motivated’.
Favourites Tools Help The day began with an
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Sales forecasting and sales targets

six things about sales conferences

early-morning, forty-five minute Powerpoint presentation about the importance

of team motivation (in case we had missed exactly the same lecture last
year – or the year before that). One or two colleagues suddenly remembered
important client meetings that they couldn’t cancel. The rest of us were put
into groups so that we could spend the next twenty minutes finding out things
that the various members of the group had in common. My group bonded
very quickly when we discovered that all of us would prefer to be somewhere
else. We decided that an early coffee break would not be a bad idea.
The morning continued with more inane activities (one of which involved
some creative engineering with office stationery), followed by reflections on
how efficiently we had functioned as a group. After a long lunch, the room
seemed a lot emptier than the
morning, so we reformed into new
groups in order to brainstorm ‘ways
of motivating our customers’. At
that point, I realized that I had to
be decisive. I invented a sudden
illness and left. Otherwise, there’s a
possibility I would have been really ill.
Why, oh why, do ‘Motivation’ days
depress me so much? The answer, I
think, is that I really hate it when
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2 Complete the text with the correct linkers so that, in 3 Work in pairs. How many different ways can you
order to, in case or otherwise. complete the sentences below?
1 Team-building activities must not be … Otherwise, …
The day began with some getting-to-know-you activities
2 The activities should be … so that everybody …
(1) we could learn more about our team
3 There should be … in case there are disagreements.
members. We were then given a task and we discussed it
4 The activities should be … in order to motivate
for some time (2) be sure that we all knew what
everyone.
our responsibilities and roles were. The team leader
kept in the background at this stage. (3) , nobody 4 Work in pairs. Discuss the questions. What do you
would have said anything. Next, we agreed on a plan of think of team-building activities? Are they a waste of
action and on a second contingency plan (4) we time and money or do they have a value?
were unable to achieve our initial objectives.

Straightforward Upper Intermediate Second edition © Macmillan Publishers Limited 2012 2