teambuilding

The term team-building can refer generally to the selection and motivation of teams, or more specifically to group self-assessment in the theory and practice of Organizational development (OD).

Generic team-building - "Team building" (or "teambuilding") can refer to the process of establishing specific groups to accomplish certain tasks in a sports club or some sort of organization. Ingredients seen as important to the successful set-up and launch of such team efforts include:

selection

establishing visions, goals, missions and/or objectives

distribution of workload

timetabling

balancing skill-sets

metrics

harmonising personality types

training on how to work togetherThe morale of the team, an important variable, may depend on such factors as:

support

resources

communication

personalitiesAs team performance reflects on management, managers -- and even coach (sport) coaches -- sometimes feel the need to take part in constructing and fostering teams.As with many activities, team-building can run to extremes. For a notorious recent example of team building run amok, see the case of Kamp Staaldraad in 2003.

Need for team-building - Modern society and culture continues to become more fluid and dynamic. Factors contributing to this include the communications revolution, the global market and the ever-increasing specialization and division of labor. The net effect is that individuals are now required to move between working with many different groups of people in their working and also personal lives. Joining a new group and immediately being expected to get along with them is somewhat unnatural - historically humans have evolved to work and live in close-knit, static societies. Hence the sudden need for methods to help people adapt to the new requirements. All kinds of people, from investment bankers to catering staff and session musicians, face the same difficulties. As yet there is no generally agreed solution to the problem - it may not even be possible given the thousands of years of cultural evolution that brought us to our present behavior patterns.

Team-building in Organizational development - Whenever a team in an OD context embarks upon a process of self-assessment in order to gauge its own effectiveness and thereby improve performance, it engages in team building.

Assessing team effectiveness - To assess itself, a team seeks feedback to find out both:

its current strengths as a team

its current weaknesses

Improving team performance - To improve its current performance, a team uses the feedback from the team assessment in order to:

identify any gap between the desired state and the actual state

design any gap-closure strategy

See also -

Cross-Functional Team

!Forming-storming-norming-perfo rming

List of human resource management topics

Team

External links -

wilderdom.com - Team Building Resources News, Methods, Activities, Research, & More - News, definitions, articles, methods, and research.

? wilderdom.com - Team Building Activities, Initiative Games, & Problem Solving Exercises - Descriptions of exercises to help groups to develop effective communication and problem-solving skills.

freechild.org - So You Wanna Be a Playa: Cooperative Games for Social Change - A free booklet of activities for teambuilding, problemsolving, and more.

nasa.perbang.dk - The Nasa Exercise: Lost on the Moon - On-line version of a widely used team-building exercise for measuring team processes.

Developing Teamwork - A DVD-video based developingteamwork.com - team building package designed for organisations wishing to improve the effective use of the intellectual resource of their people. Available for review online free of charge.

Off-line reference material -

William G. Dyer, ''Team building: Current Issues and New Alternatives (3rd Edition)''. Pearson Education POD, 1995. ISBN !0201628821.category:Organizati onal? studies and human resource managementcs:Team !buildingnl:Teambuilding DEBUG REDIRECT (team building)

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World-Class Customer Service Training
Belding Skills Development delivers world-class customer service training, seminars and workshops for retail, call center, corporate and public sectors
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Human Resources Consulting Partnership, with members worldwide. Specializes in Talent Selection & Hiring, Development, Training and Transition.
http://www.lincolnshireintl.com/

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Priority Living Systems works with people who want to raise income ceilings, cut work hours and get more out of life. Thousands of people attribute their success and joy of life to thier programs.
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Hereschicago.com
Chicago's Meetings and Special Events Directory for Chicago Restaurants, Nightlife, Ground Transportation, Special Event and Meeting and Convention Venues and Services, Corporate Entertainment, Speakers, Teambuidling, Sightseeing and tours.
http://www.hereschicago.com/

Teambuilding, Inc.
Team building services, bookstore, catalog, discussion, articles, links, and team problem solver.
http://www.teambuildinginc.com/

Team Building Events and Corporate Entertainment
A range of activities for a business fun day. Provides services anywhere in the UK
http://www.actiondays.co.uk/

Wild Events
Creates team building events. Subjects include teamwork, communication, planning and negotiation.
http://www.wildevents.co.uk/

The Teambuilding Company
UK company offers corporate team bulding events and activities packages. Generic and custom designed events are available.
http://www.teambuilding.co.uk/

Cornell Outdoor Education
Offers customized outdoor adventure workshops in teambuilding and leadership development for corporations and other professional groups.
http://www.coe.cornell.edu/