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About Cheri Baker

  • Cheri Baker is the owner of Emergence Consulting®, an Organizational Development Consulting firm based near Seattle, WA.

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Tim Wright

Cheri -

Good distinctions between morale boosting and team building. The factors you list that contribute to team building are surely on the mark, I believe.

I think the analogy for creating a successful team is one of growth rather than building. A dynamic team is planted, nurtured, and tended through its developmental period. Then, as necessary, it is pruned, trimmed, fertilized, and well-harvested through its maturity.

I suggest these requisites for successfully growing such a dynamic team:

Attention to trust. All too often we consider trust only once it has "gone south." Efforts to develop trust as a positive and continuous factor in/of a team pay off in the short and the long term.

Attention to focus. Assuming that since everyone knows why the team exists and what its purpose is they all share a common focus is just that...assuming. From start up there should be ample and detailed discussion (not one-way presentation) of team focus. Focus includes but is not limited to goals/objectives, process and procedure, individual responsibilities and expectations.

Attention to time. Not so much in regards to "how much time do we have?" or "What's our deadline?" Rather attention to the different relationships with time held by different team members. Every team has an 11th-hour player. Every team has a "get it done from the get-go" member. Every team has others in between those two. The sooner everyone knows where all others come from concerning time, the sooner possible upsets are precluded.

Thanks for letting me share these thoughts.

Ron

Cheri your brought up some interesting points. I think of all pizza parties passed off as team building event in early years? I believe we managers can effectively build teams if we focus on teaching, coaching, and leading our members to new growth and horizons.

John

Ron, how ironic for you to use management-speak when talking about team building???
Team building is NOT 'being coached by your manager' !

Maria

This is something I have considered myself. I work for a team building company and have found quite often that a client will come to me and ask for a team building event but describe what they want and it becomes evident that they are looking for corporate entertainment, for example - an after dinner quiz or race night, these are activities that can be done in teams but they are classed as entertainment to us because the objective is FUN! It is difficult to explain this to a client without patronising or offending them, although this sort of thing as you pointed out does increase morale, in order to 'build a team' if you have a team that needs re-bonding or has communication issues you need to set clear objectives for the event/session and speak to someone about how you will achieve them.

And John, I have to disagree, team building can be coaching from your manager, if your manager has the ability and understanding necessary to carry out such a task in the right way it can be more effective than when carried out by an external consultant who the team have no respect for.

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