Once again summer is upon us, we feel the temperature rise, and we may be in for blistering warm weather. It is also the season for team building. Team building is the forever organization development intervention. Rightfully so. Team building provides clear advantages to people in organizations, even if it means different things to different companies.
REASONS FOR TEAM BUILDING
One company hitches the team building exercise to its annual picnic. It is meant as a “fun” exercise outside the office, getting people to connect at a personal level. Another company sees it as an opportunity for people to appreciate their behavioral profiles and improve team dynamics. Still other companies view team building as team development. It is designed as a series of interventions over a year meant to ensure enhanced synergies, creativity and productivity in the work place. Team building is just the first step in the series.
The saying the “whole is greater than the sum of its parts” has been proven. It also reminds me of the Biblical phrase, “It is not good for man to be alone”. Indeed, our humanity and identity stems from our ability to relate to other people in mutual respect and the joy of working in unison with others to achieve goals.
ELEMENTS OF TEAMWORK
Wikipedia defines teamwork as “action performed by a team towards a common goal… team consists of more than one person each typically with different responsibilities”. The elements of a good team include: common purpose, interdependence, clear roles and contributions, satisfaction from mutually working together, mutual and individual accountability, realization of synergies and empowerment. If one pursues these elements, it becomes obvious that team building has to graduate to team development.
TEAMWORK ACTIVITY TRENDS
Team building activities may range from classroom exercises, to low or high ropes, to physical activity. Today, companies have expanded the range of team activities that can be pursued year round to develop the team. One, are social activities which could be company anniversary parties or birthday celebrants of the month get together. Another is the pursuit of corporate responsibility or charitable activities. A company reserves a Saturday for people to serve in a social center or hospital, forgetting their stressful work lives at the service of the needy and the sick.
One company engages in work place activities to build synergy. An example would be job swapping for a month. This allows employees to feel and experience how to be in another employee’s shoes. It increases empathy and provides a learning assignment for future job movement. Another example is to create a team to do a monthly e-newsletter encouraging creativity while working towards a common goal. Still others engage in “learn and leisure“ program, where a holiday cruise includes a workshop on board for the team and greater free time upon reaching the destination.
STAGES OF TEAM DEVELOPMENT
If one thinks team development, then through a development process team members go through the process of “forming, storming, norming, performing and dissolution” over a sequence of activities that then makes teamwork part of the culture.
Tuckman cites 5 stages. The first stage is team orientation or the forming stage. Members become familiar with each other and the group. Core issues are dependency and inclusion, acceptance of leader and group consensus. The second stage is conflict or storming where the group manages processes related to disagreement over procedures, expression of dissatisfaction and tension among members and the leader. The third stage is the creation of structure or norming. Here there is the growth of cohesiveness and unity, establishment of roles, standards and relationships with increased trust and communication.
The fourth stage is getting to work in performing. This is the period of goal achievement, high task orientation, emphasis on performance and production. Finally team dissolution or adjourning. This involves the termination of roles, completion of tasks and reduction of dependency.
ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES
One, a vital principle in team building is that respect matters. As Filipinos, one of our outstanding traits is our ability to have fun, to laugh to relieve stress and pressure. But we have to take care when we talk about other members of our team. We may behind their backs treat them with disrespect. We have to remember that respect is due to other people because of their innate nature, “ having been created in the image and likeness of God”.
What is respect? Myers defines respect as “a positive regard for the worth of someone or something. It includes respect for the rights and dignity of other people, for laws and authority, for nature or for oneself”. Respect includes appreciation, understanding and esteem, so critical in building positive relationships among members of a team
Two, another principle is embracing diversity. This means recognizing that every individual is distinct and has different tendencies in relating to groups. These tendencies are determined by personal qualities, traits and social motives. The introversion-extraversion trait predicts the extent to which people are drawn or avoid other groups. Social motives such as needs for affiliation, intimacy and power explain why people use groups to satisfy their needs.
Three, is understanding group cohesion as an ingredient of teams. It comes from interrelated sources, including interpersonal attraction, a sense of unity and the pursuit of shared goals. Cohesion develops through a period of group development. Cohesion is often linked to member satisfaction and decreased in attrition and stress. It also strengthens group processes increasing performance and productivity.
In closing, may your team building graduate to team development. Start during summer but develop the team the whole year round.
(Tita Datu Puangco is CEO and President of Ancilla Enterprise Development Consulting, a major training and organization development company in the Philippines with an Asian reach. It specializes in enterprise transformation, executive coaching, corporate leadership and functional training, human resource systems, corporate academies, learning events and management of business training centers. For your letters/ feedback, kindly email: tita.datu76@gmail.com, For other inquiries, please call 8810-3129/0920-9218332/0917-8348176)
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