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Essay on Organizational Development - Team Building
Introduction
In the late 80s and 90s, 'Team Building' has been recognized by many companies as an important factor in providing a quality service and remaining competitive. Yet the term 'team building' can sometimes seem rather nebulous - people often know that they need it, but aren't quite sure what it is (Zenger, 1994).
Team-building is a planned process that utilizes a structured set of strategies and activities designed to improve team performance and teamwork. Team-building can be offered to new and existing teams as well as special work groups such as project task forces or committees. Team building interventions generally focus on four major areas: (Schamber, 2002)
- Assessment of team effectiveness
- Goal and task accomplishment
- Relationships & communication
- Leadership and team processes
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) (Belbin, 1990).
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
The primary skills in this process are recognizing the right issues, and tackling them in an appropriate way and an appropriate order. Team building can also take a different form depending on the size and nature of the team. In a project environment, where team composition is continually changing, the emphasis must be on developing the skills in individuals to be effective team members................
