What is Team Building?

The concept of team building refers to groups of people from an organization coming together in order to learn new skills that are meant to enhance their future working relationships. Skills are usually taught through workshops during which the participants take part in group exercises designed to improve communication, trust, interpersonal understanding, empathy, goal setting and other such processes that can effect group dynamics. The building of teams has numerous benefits.

Increased Collaboration

Lack of collaboration among team members can be a strong contributor to problems among the group. Whether that group is a sports team, departmental co-workers or extracurricular club, people who don’t work together well have difficulty reaching goals. Activities that require the participation of all members such as role playing a hypothetical business problem or literally working together to complete a puzzle are good examples of exercises that increase collaboration. Such tasks can be a lot of fun. They require teams to cooperate, communicate and compromise in order to reach desired outcomes.

Conflict Resolution

Personality clashes and misunderstandings are commonplace in work groups. Team building exercises that are geared toward allowing members to get to know each other on a personal level can really bring people together and work toward overcoming differences. These activities should occur on neutral territory, away from the workplace or school environment in order to put everyone on equal footing. This also helps in avoiding environmental triggers that could hinder progress.

Trust Building

Without some level of trust, teams or groups fail to thrive and do not function efficiently. In order to work effectively toward goals, members must allow themselves to depend on each other to complete necessary tasks. A way to begin to build trust is to engage in exercises that bring pairs or small groups in somewhat vulnerable scenarios. Most people have heard of trust falls in which one person must fall backward and trust the other to catch them. Another popular activity involves pairs staring into each other’s eyes for one minute. This vulnerability can be a bonding experience.

Better Communication

So many issues can arise due to poor communication. Without knowing how to make one’s self understand or to feel empowered to ask for clarification, misunderstandings can occur. When the message is lost, shared goals cannot be accomplished. Therefore, it’s important to work on exercise that emphasize communication skills during retreats or in-services. Teams can be split into two or more groups, given materials such as legos and instructed to work together to build a tall structure. The team that builds the tallest structure within the allotted time period is declared the winner. In reality, everyone wins because they have the opportunity to practice effective communication, along with collaboration, dealing with conflict along the way and building trust.

Teams, groups and clubs can all benefit from these fun learning opportunities. When they return to their daily routines, they will be more in-tune and refreshed, reading to start projects with a new attitude. Team building is a process that should be on-going in order to achieve the best and most lasting results.