WHAT IS TEAM BUILDING?

Any type of organization; a business, a corporation, a sports team, a non-profit institution or any other sort of association is made of people. However, hardly ever every member of an organization works alone, since completing tasks and achieving goals requires a different set of skills and more importantly; the work of a team.

People coming together in order to complete a common objective among each other is the simplest definition of a team. Without such integration of people working as a unit, achieving the goals of any organization would be harder, if not impossible to fulfill.

That is why; business owners, managers, CEOs and leaders in general are paying attention more than ever to any organizational development tool that is capable of improving teamwork. This is when team building as a wide set of unification and collective strategies come to the table. Let´s address team building and everything that has to do with such relevant tools for organizations of any type and at any level.

What is team building? Concept and purpose In detail, team building is the set of activities, strategies and tactics that have the purpose to develop, improve and enhance the performance of a team or group of teams in any type of organization.

Team building is for many experts the ultimate organizational development tool, due to results in institutions from regular schools and businesses to military units and sports teams, among others. With every tactic that is carried out, the objective is helping teams to develop deeper relationships with other members and therefore, achieving established goals of the organization in the least time possible. As such, team building is way more complex than it may seem, since it addresses groups of people with different interests, personalities, idiosyncrasies and way of life into one common end or goal. It is the intention of team building to bring such people together by showing them such facts and reality in common they have, through meaningful experiences. High-performing teams usually translate into good results in the organization. However, seeing a high-performing person bringing great results to teams of individuals is rarer, due to communication issues, bad relationships and differences members have. With team building, organization members will be able to see they work better as a unit, despite the differences that are natural to exist.

Thanks to William McDougal and Elton Mayo later on, team building as topic started to be addressed as a way of building better groups of people with the optimal and best environment possible to get things done. In simple words, it was given the theoretical framework that proved: happy workers and teams deliver better results and productivity.

APPROACHES RESPECTING TEAM BUILDING

Specifically, team building is a combination of active and passive activities with intentional outcomes, involving nature process-driven training, as well as mentorship. So, through events, task completing and games distinct positive results can be achieved that improve from general relationships to communication expertise. Some of the skills and values that can be addressed specifically or combined by carrying out team building activities are:

• Trust
• Integration
• Responsibility
• Cooperation
• Tolerance
• Self-discovery
• Honesty
• Emotional intelligence
• Teamwork
• Work quality
• Leadership
• Negotiation capabilities
• Loyalty
• Innovation Now, hence there are hundreds of activities respecting team building that can be done, experts usually address four main approaches that divide the available tasks into more general methodologies, which are focused on different objectives or goals to be achieved.

The four main approaches for team building are:

- Goal setting: clear goals make the way shorter One way to make the way shorter respecting a goal is to actually define it clearly. Since this is the main objective for team building to exist, such a point is critical and usually comes first. When a certain goal is given to a time, the task of addressing different options on how to achieve such goal is very important and powerful. With goal setting, giving a certain task for each member to complete in order to accomplish the goal gives them a sensation of purpose, involvement and ownership. It is important to highlight that goals must be established for the team as a whole, as well for each member individually. In the same way, every objective should be realistic, achievable, measurable, specific and timely. This is known as the SMART approach for goals to be actually reasonable.

- Role clarification: who does what according to specific skills In combination with goal setting, role clarification is another aspect that is imperative for any team to work properly and with cohesiveness. By clarifying the role of each member, everyone will be able to know exactly what to do, getting rid of ambiguity and providing specific responsibilities. In this approach, leaders look for identify the proper role a member should perform in terms of skills and personality, as well as emphasizing the importance of each role separately and as a whole. In the same way, when every member recognizes its role to play, it is easier to focus on that task and develop the required knowledge to fulfill it.

- Problem solving: addressing issues together In order to accomplish the organization's goals, usually team members as a whole and independently must face a series of issues and challenges that may appear as they work. With team building, the idea is to give members the resources and abilities so problems can be addressed and ultimately solved together. When team members face a problem with task work – specific problems team individuals have according to concrete expertise and role – communicative skills and action plans are necessary. As such, the purpose is turning task work into teamwork – issues that appear and have effect on the entire team and goal, requiring interdependence and members´ interaction – to come up with a solution. Along with action plans and communicative skills, other resources are developed under this approach to improve relationships between each team member, so they can feel confident enough to ask for assistance.

- Interpersonal-relationship management: how team members relate In any organization, teams are made of people who relate and work together for common goals and objectives. Now, the way team members relate and interact with each other has a great impact on performance and results. Naturally, a team that is lacking clear communication paths, trust, cooperation and tolerance in general will not deliver proper and adequate outcomes. This is when interpersonal-relationship management and development is important, as the set of activities that can help team members to relate to each other better by finding things in common, building trust and clear communication pathways. Usually, team-focused activities outdoors and out of schedule and office are great to develop better interpersonal relationships among team members. We are going to be talking more in-depth about such activities in the next section.

TYPES OF TEAM BUILDING ACTIVITIES

As mentioned before, team building activities are divided into two main categories with different purposes and approaches; passive team building and active team building tactics. Let´s address them more deeply:

- Passive team building: culture and business-focused strategies Specifically, passive team building refers to strategies carried out at a culture and business level, meaning such tactics are not performed concretely for and by work teams, but toward the organization and its idiosyncrasy. These practices usually focus on communication skills and channels, management, business environment and other fields that indirectly have great influence on teams´ performance and success.

Team building includes practices that address the following departments:

• Communication: good, concise, clear and free communication is key for any organization and team.

Among the strategies, some examples are: apply communication guidelines, establish communication as priority in the hiring area of the organization, adopt management and communication tools across the business and encourage communication skills through rewards.

• Culture: the culture of an organization is everything that defines it, from the core to how individuals and teams work and interact. Ideally, the business or institution philosophy must focus on values that increase and optimize team work.

This can be done by empowering team members, rewarding teamwork in general and specifically through collaboration and practices and even policies that always consider teams and members a great part of the organization.

• Collaboration: prioritizing collaboration not only between team members, but from the organization to the individuals and groups is important. This has a result building more cohesive teams and people that feel part of a community.

Developing informal communication and collaboration networks, making mentoring an intrinsic part of the organization´s idiosyncrasy and encouraging a sense of community from the initial hiring stage are great ways to improve collaboration.

• Engagement strategies: engagement strategies are tactics that help team members to approach tasks and projects with the same enthusiasm as in the beginning. Losing interest or getting bored is normal, particularly when engagement tactics are not applied.

• Great examples such strategies are: reward and recognize creativity, hard work, effort and results, brainstorming, involvement in the creative and decision making process and more.

- Active team building: team-focused strategies

Active team building refers to the set of strategies that are carried out and specifically focused on particular teams, in order to improve values of communication, collaboration, trust and teamwork directly. Therefore, active strategies are the ones that are performed by individuals with a specific goal, such as solving shortcomings or boosting bonding. Some of the active building techniques available are:

Activities and games: weekend retreats, end-of-the-month games or annual company trips, or even birthday celebrations are part of active team building activities.

With fun and non-related work competitions and doings, teams and coworkers are able to improve in many aspects and solve shortcomings.

Among the many activities available, each one addresses aspects of communication, cohesive identity, trust, collaboration and others through fun activities to be completed together.

From drawing to playing a sport or even making a trip together, an experience team members have together will help them bond more.

Team assessments: team assessment is a tool that allows managers to know how cohesive, communicative or bond a team is.

Also, evaluation tools can also provide valuable data on the skills and personality of each team member, so managers can pair them up with suitable and matching individuals.

Team selection: choosing the best performers for a specific team is critical for the success of such a group respecting goal achieving tasks. Therefore, at the moment of putting a team together, carrying out a team selection process considering skills and personality is critical to build a cohesive and high-performing group.