What is a Team Building Event?
It is a facilitated conversation by a neutral party that encourages all team members to examine critical success factors for the team.
Bruce Tuckman: 4 Stages of Team Development
Why Invest Time in this Event?
To improve the team’s ability to problem-solve, clearly define objectives and goals, and be more collectively effective, efficient and productive by learning how team members think and work.
How Does it Work?
By having conversations about how the team is doing, how they might perform better and determining what the personal and group needs are. This builds trust, confidence, energy and creativity and strengthens team effectiveness.
Who Benefits?
Everyone (individuals, teams, board members, vendors, and clients).
What Are Some Additional Benefits?
• Clearly communicate individual and group expectations for performance improvement
• Establish and implement consistent feedback mechanisms for greater support and expansion
• Improve morale and leadership skills
• Reduce stress, assumptions, and errors
- • Clarify ways to celebrate success, and nurture creative thought
• Identify and address team strengths and weaknesses
Critical Questions you might want to address:
1. How does work get assigned?
2. How do we ensure the flow of information to key people and departments?
3. What are we good at? What are some obstacles affecting the team?
4. How do we take greater ownership on the team?
5. What resources are being under-utilized? What unidentified resources are needed for our success?
The Process
Before the Event:
- The team clarifies their vision and definition of success through individual and/or group interviews.
- Each team member completes a self-assessment diagnostic, which helps to identify what is and is not working.
During the Event:
- The team gets together for the team building session and sharpens its focus. Then through facilitated conversation, the members strategically look at what needs to be done to take the team to the next level of efficiency and effectiveness.
After the Event:
Moving forward, the team collaboratively holds each other accountable. Future team building events can be scheduled incrementally to sustain success.
Some Resources we Apply
Tuckman’s Model of Team Development states that teams go through 4 stages of growth: Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing. When there is new leadership, new policies, staff or job description changes – teams can find themselves back in Forming and Storming. A team’s understanding of where they fall in the continuum can be pivotal to becoming a high performing team, and therefore organization.
Patrick Lencioni, author of The Five Dysfunctions of a team says:
“No quality or characteristic is more important than trust”.
Patrick Lencioni: 5 Dysfunctions of a Team
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