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What is team building

 

A team is a group of people working towards a common goal. 'Team Building' is the process of enabling that group of people to reach their goal. It is therefore a management issue, and the most effective form of team building is that undertaken as a form of management consultancy, rather than as pure training (though there is a role for training within a programme of team building).

 

In its simplest terms, the stages involved in team building are:

 

• To clarify the team goals
• To identify those issues which inhibit the team from reaching their goals
• To address those issues, remove the inhibitors and enable the goals to be achieved

 

Creating teamwork is a challenging process. Merely referring to a collection of employees as a team doesn't make them one. The first question to ask is, is this a team or a group? Each has a purpose. Typically, a team shares leadership and is interdependent, meaning they depend on each other for information, services or products to achieve a team goal.

 

A leader (manager, supervisor) spearheads a group; members work on their own most of the time with little or no dependence on other members to do their job. There may be a group effort but it is not a team. You can't have the same expectations of a group as you do a team. Determine what you are working with, team or group, and proceed from there.