Thanks to Cheri Essner, PMP, MCPM, MCBA founder of KoreBuilders.ca for contributing this post to CSD.
Team Building provides employees with a high level sense of purpose, effective communication, trusting relationships, clarity of objectives, waste management awareness and ethical conduct.
The additional value of teambuilding provides a strong and decisive management style. The stress among team members is reduced as problems are solved through sharing loads. More ideas are generated to enhance team achievements, thus increasing the innovativeness and creativity of team members.
It is possible to solve interpersonal problems, confusion over rules, poor interpersonal relations, as well as deal with conflict and communication issues.
There are many team building activities that are simple to perform, designed to provide a value driven culture through the shared experiences and lessons learned. You have the ability to complete exercises with your team that will address a specific issue you are experiencing during each stage of team development.
Typical example
Team members are complaining that one person on the team is not paying attention to the project plan and is working against them by not communicating and sharing what they are doing and why. The whole team is feeling frustration with one individual. This individual is not great with communication and has no appreciation for collaboration amongst the team. This person tells you after speaking with him that he prefers to work on his own and sees no value or benefit for him personally working with the team. This person believes that the more he knows and does not share the more valuable he will become to the organization. He believes that sharing is giving away his power over ideas that he will not receive credit for. He is still at “Me and you need to convert him to “We” fast. This is a conflict that must be resolved immediately.
You realize that this is a fixed mind-set that will require some team building to change. You can talk until you are blue in the face but it will probably fall on deaf ears. You can help this individual change his mind set by helping him feel the result a team can have.
Exercise: The value of team work
Here is an exercise that I have used and it works beautifully. I call it “The Value of Team Work”. It takes 20 minutes to complete and it really hits home. Gather 60 small items all different (create a list) and put them on a table off to the side, covered from view. Gather your team and allow them to view the 60 items for 2 minutes (it really seems like a long time, but make them stay there viewing the items for the whole 2 minutes). Then ask everyone to sit down individually and in 5 minutes write down as many items as they can remember. The room will hopefully become immediately competitive. Each individual will try to outdo the others for the highest score. Take a poll at the end of the 5 minutes. I have seen scores as low as 7 and as high as 16 individually. Then put them into groups or just re-convene your team and ask them to create a new list together and see how many things they can remember. Give them 10 minutes. The results speak for themselves. I would guess they come up with about 45 collectively. Lesson felt is you can achieve far more working together then you can individually.
It is these types of exercises that are short but which provide your team with valuable hands on experience. You can expect an immediate return on your investment as you create priceless “Aha!” moments for individuals, while helping everyone learn the value of working together.
About Cheri Essner
Cheri Essner, PMP, MCPM, MCBA founder of KoreBuilders.ca with a vision of “Knowledge Offers Renewed Empowerment”. Team building is her passion and she loves to share her experiences from working in the classroom. KoreBuilders.ca believes that team building is the way to change your Organization Culture from “Me” to “We” through Interactive Exercises and Self-Assessment. Cheri teaches Project Management and Team Building Courses at the College Level. Cheri is very active with her local PMI Chapter and will serve her first term as Chapter President starting in 2013. Cheri will come to you In-Person, Virtually or via her Workshop Kits to provide you with the tools you need to have a high performing team!
Follow Cheri on Twitter @cheriessner | Connect with her on LinkedIn| Add her to your Google+
