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Basic Team Building Design
This document is very generic, but serves as a basis from which to customize
a team building intervention that meets the specific needs of an intact or newly
forming team.
Six Phases of the Team Building Process:
Phase 1: Clarification/Agreement on Team's Purpose.
The participants have a brief discussion of why their team exists -
purpose(s) and membership.
Phase 2: Assessment of Team's Current Effectiveness.
The members of the team brainstorm and seek consensus on the critical
characteristics/attributes and behaviors required for their team's
effectiveness. They also benchmark their current level of effectiveness of
displaying those behaviors.
Phase 3: Appreciating the Diversity of Individual Members.
Assessments of each member's strengths and potential limitations.
Discussion around personal styles, business values, and/or roles/functions
in the organization/team.
Phase 4: Building the Team.
Discussion and experiences leveraging individual strengths and
compensating for individual limitations. Build synergy via dialogue,
constructive feedback, and integration of diversity factors.
Phase 5: Applications.
We observe/facilitate the team working together on their specific
application(s). This phase is designed in response to specific, identified,
required outcomes. Some teams we've worked with have:
- Created a vision or mission statement
- Defined leadership roles within or beyond the team
- Learned how to conduct effective meetings
- Learned procedures for effective problem solving
- Planned/implemented a process improvement implementation
- Discussed organization issues
Phase 6: Follow up.
After an agreed-upon time, we revisit the team and/or individuals to
check application progress and team process. Reinforcement via dialogue or
future team building interventions will be used as appropriate and agreed
upon.
Our Philosophy:
Our philosophy and practice is to enable individuals and teams to own the
process and carry it forward. This must be balanced with the individual and
collective levels of readiness. We continuously work with individuals and the
team to help them feel truly empowered and avoid undue dependence on us. In a
similar manner, we ensure that individuals' skills and attitudes are mutually
and positively reinforcing and focused prior to withdrawing our services.
Methodologies:
For many team buildings we use assessment instruments to provide
feedback on such things as personal style, business values, leadership styles,
organization culture and climate, and teamwork. We share results of such
assessments with the individuals who then decide how much and when to share
their data with others. In some cases, we provide some additional instruction
about the theory behind a given assessment tool and its validity and
reliability.
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