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Team building is
creating a work culture that values collaboration. In a teamwork
environment, people understand and believe that thinking, planning,
decisions and actions are better when done cooperatively. People
recognize, and even assimilate, the belief that “none of us is as
good as all of us.” (High Five) It’s hard to find work
places that exemplify teamwork. In America, our institutions such as
schools, our family structures, and our pastimes emphasize winning,
being the best, and coming out on top. Workers are rarely raised in
environments that emphasize true collaboration. Organizations are
working on valuing diverse people, ideas, backgrounds, and
experiences. We have miles to go before valuing collaboration will
be the norm.
You can,
however, create a teamwork culture by doing just a few things right.
Admittedly, they’re the hard things, but with commitment and
appreciation for the value, you can create an overall sense of
teamwork in your organization.
Create a Culture of Teamwork
To make teamwork happen, these powerful actions must occur.
- Executive leaders communicate the clear expectation that
teamwork and collaboration are expected. No one completely owns a
work area or process all by himself. People who own work processes
and positions are open and receptive to ideas and input from
others.
- Executives model teamwork in their interaction with each other
and the rest of the organization. They maintain teamwork even when
things are going wrong and the temptation is to slip back into
former behavior.
- The organization members talk about and identify the value of
a teamwork culture. If values are formally written and shared,
teamwork is one of the key five or six.
- Teamwork is rewarded and recognized. The lone ranger, even if
she is an excellent producer, is valued less than the person who
achieves results with others. Compensation, bonuses, and rewards
depend on collaborative practices as much as individual
contribution and achievement.
- Important stories and folklore that people discuss within the
company emphasize teamwork. (Remember the year the capsule team
reduced scrap by 20 percent? People who “do well” and are promoted
within the company are team players.)
- The performance management system places emphasis and value on
teamwork. Often 360 degree feedback is integrated within the
system; this feedback from colleagues, direct reports and the boss
can have a powerful impact on work behaviors.
Tips for Team
Building
Do you
immediately picture your group off at a resort playing games or
hanging from ropes when you think of team building? Traditionally,
many organizations approached team building this way. Then, they
wondered why that wonderful sense of team, experienced at the
retreat or seminar, failed to impact long term beliefs and actions
back at work.
I’m not averse
to retreats, planning sessions, seminars and team building
activities – in fact I lead them - but they have to be part of a
larger effort. You will not build teamwork by “retreating” as a
group for a couple of days each year. Think of team building as
something you do every single day.
- Form teams to solve real work issues and to improve real work
processes. Provide training in systematic methods so the team
expends its energy on the project, not on figuring out how to work
together to approach it.
- Hold department meetings to review projects and progress, to
obtain broad input, and to coordinate shared work processes. If
group members are not getting along, examine the work processes
they mutually own. The problem is not usually the personalities of
the people. It’s the fact that they often haven’t agreed on how
they will deliver a product or a service or the steps required to
get something done.
- Build fun and shared occasions into the organization’s agenda.
Hold pot luck lunches; take the organization to a sporting event.
Sponsor dinners at a local restaurant. Go hiking or to an
amusement park. In the wake of September 11, employers seem to be
canceling some of these team building-type activities at a time
when they are needed most, by many.
- Use ice breakers and time-limited fun team building exercises
at meetings or as a voluntary activity. I worked with an
organization recently that held a weekly staff meeting.
Participants took turns bringing a “fun” ice breaker to the
meeting. These activities were limited to ten minutes, but they
helped participants laugh together and get to know each other – a
small investment in a big time sense of team.
- Celebrate group successes publicly. Buy everyone the same
t-shirt or hat. Put team member names in a drawing for company
merchandise and gift certificates. You are limited only by your
imagination.
Take care of the hard issues above and do the types of team
building activities listed here. You’ll be amazed at the progress
you will make in creating a teamwork culture, a culture that enables
individuals to contribute more than they ever thought possible -
together. |
