7 Essential Steps For Successful Team Building - Throw Away the T Shirts and Caps

There's a lot of talk about team building in businessand just focus on accomplishing the team's task.
but all too often the team turns out to be a group4. Debrief The Team
of people carrying out the ideas of a single person.Every exercise should have an objective and it's
They may have ball caps or T-Shirts or mugs withimportant to debrief the participants at the conclusion
the team name but when you boil it down it's just aof each exercise. This is an opportunity to point out
group of individuals doing their individual tasks whichdifficulties and how they were overcome, and it's an
are in turned judged by the individual who leads theexcellent opportunity to solicit how the objective
"team". In other words it's the traditionalcould have been reached faster or with more
organizational structure with chotskies.efficiency.
But successful team building can yield very real5. Use The Debrief To Make Changes
benefits for an organization not the least of which isAfter the exercise has been dissected, present the
increased productivity. Check out these 7 teamgroup with a relative process or task in their real job
building tips and then ask yourself if they make senseand ask how the lesson learned can be applied.
for your business.Getting individuals accustomed to discussing "team"
1. Just What Do You Hope To Gainproblems and challenges rather than focusing on
Before you commit to a team building effort youindividual difficulties is the first step in process
have to know just what results you expect and howimprovement.
those results will positively impact the business.6. Bonding Is Dandy But...
These objectives have to be definitively laid out andTeams are built by sharing common experiences.
they have to be measurable which means you'reThose experiences can be positive or negative; the
going to have to do some deep thinking. For examplereal importance is that they were shared equally by
team building done right will foster respect for and aall members of the team. Assuming you're not
sense of responsibility to other team members. Thisrunning a terrorist training camp, you probably want
will translate into fewer sick days, fewer late arrivalsto schedule positive experiences like a paintball outing
and quite possibly fewer work comp claims. That'sor bowling or even just a happy hour. Understand
the kind of extrapolation you need to do to definethough, that these activities rarely have any impact
objectives. Lastly a budget has to be set.on improving processes but do bond the team which
2. Use An Outside Facilitatorcan infuse a sense of pride and energy into the
To avoid the feeling that the team building effort isoperation.
just one of the boss's pet projects, use an outside7. Review And Repeat
facilitator. This doesn't mean you have to hire aIn your overall plan you should schedule review times
consultant, although if you have the budget it's theto measure the progress or lack thereof of the
best way to go, but just some qualified person in theprogram. If this is done on a quarterly basis then
company who understands the objectives of theobjectives need to be measured against the time
program.and budget spent. If the trend is positive, increase
3. Make The Exercises Fun But Relevantbudget and keep plugging away.
There are any number of simple exercises that canSo you have a choice. Either you can support the
be amusing to the group but that can also be appliedsales promotion industry and buy more chotskies and
to the workplace. For example if you are trying topretend you have a team, or you can budget for a
build a project management team out of a group ofwell thought out and measurable program. What's it
people with different specialties, then give them angoing to be coach?
exercise that requires them to forget their expertise