Team building - Why it's important

Team Building is an active process by which a group of individuals with a common purpose are focused and aligned to achieve a specific task or set of outcomes.

Teams form themselves naturally, given time. Individual and shared goals are integrated into team activity over time as the members of the team get to know each other. Whilst there may be conflict at first, the team eventually aligns itself, has the right people doing the right things and gets on track to achieving its goals. Sometimes, teams are put together to meet an organisational need without having clearly defined goals and in this situation, it may take longer for the team to start delivering.

Team Building simply accelerates the natural process of team formation by setting very clear goals right from the start. A "team building" workshop uses a variety of tools and techniques to accelerate the process further, bringing the team together quickly and effectively.

Today, teams are reorganised more and more often. There simply isn't time in many organisations to allow teams to form naturally. The accelerated process of team building is a cornerstone of organisational change as it allows new teams to harness their initial enthusiasm and convert it into results.

One of the most important aspects of team building is this conversion of ideas and enthusiasm into motivation and delivery. At first, a new team is a collection of individuals. At this stage, all they may have in common is a job title or project. Some of these individuals will have strong ideas as to how the team can best achieve its goals, and these ideas will not always be complementary. A team like this, left to form naturally, will experience some initial discomfort as the direction of the team is established.

In the past, teams could be allowed to go through this process in their own time. Today, things are different. A recent survey found that team based working and frequent reorganisation is changing the way that businesses operate:

"Businesses in the nineties are undergoing some major and far reaching changes in the way that they work. One of the most common is the shift from old hierarchical organisational structures to flatter, more responsive organisational ones. This usually involves the creation of project teams as organisations become more task focused. Teams are often multi disciplined, drawing on the skills and experience of individuals representing a variety of functional departments around the organisation. Sometimes these teams are not physically located in the same building or town.

We found that project based teamwork is a trend that has become quite far reaching. 81% of companies interviewed endorse project based work. Project teams typically consist of up to ten people, although in some instances they are larger, and tend to last for periods of a few months."

Active team building accelerates the process of team formation and quickly creates a team of focused individuals, sharing a common purpose and goal, fully 'bought in' to the direction the team will take to achieve those goals. Enthusiasm and motivation are easily translated into achievements and success without any additional external influence. "

Team Building is necessary to allow modern businesses to focus effort and energy on results and success. Without actively managing the team formation process, teams never reach their full potential before an external change affects the team. "

So, team building is simply a way of actively managing the natural process of team formation by harnessing motivation and setting clearly defined goals and targets.

Can you afford to leave this to chance?

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