Picture source: Spain Team by prismatico via Flickr
Team-building has been within the theory and practice of Organization Development (OD), but from schools to non-profit organizations, sports arena to political scenes, it can be applied to almost any context. Almost everyone will be involved in some form of team-building in their lifetime wherever they play their roles…But have you ever ask the question:
“What really is team-building?”
“What are we actually ‘building’ when we team-build?”
“For what? Why?”
If you ask someone who has initiated team-building the reason why they do it you will be surprised with the many responses…
- To motivate them…so that they can perform to what’s expected of them.
- To build trust…so that they are able to resolve conflict and perform.
- To bond them…so that they can work well across their roles and function.
- To better communication…so that they can work well with one another and perform.
- To skill them in working in teams…so that they understand how to be a team member and perform.
- To “incentivise” them…after all they deserve a break! (after that, they better perform).
- To have fun…because we believe in having fun in the work we do. (so that we can perform better).
- To energize them…there has been a dipped in performances lately.
- To do what other teams have been doing…after all it is an “in” thing nowadays and we happen to have the budget!
- (Fill in your say…)
It is not difficult to realize that one of the key expectation for most team-building initiatives are about performance; there are many team or group performance/effectiveness/development model researched, selectively:
- Tuckman’s Group Development Model
- Tubbs’ System Model
- Fisher’s Theory
- Richard Beckhard’s Team Effectiveness Model
- McGrath’s TIP Theory
- Belbin’s Team Inventory
- Drexler Sibbet Model and many more…
But have we really take a step back and ask…what have we done (team-building) in the past that we have yet to do? Have we seriously ask WHY we team-build before the how and what? Or maybe we seriously need to consider what’s there to be done before and after team-building? What can we learn from team-building? About our people, our people’s manager, our leaders, our system and processes, roles and accountability, our relationship with one another?
Yes, there is always a place for team-building to induce the fun and playful elements. What about using fun and playfulness to gain entry to the hearts and minds of the people? Would there be a time when people get tired of fun and playful team-building? Can team-building take a dimensional change of its purpose and intention? If we have a valuable window of opportunity to help teams develop using the context of team-building, would it be a pity to let that slips?
I was giving this a serious thought some years ago and compared a group/team to a pool of water forming and moving in a concerted direction to serve its purpose/goal. It may grows in size (new members), reduce (members leave), quench thirst (meet objectives) and so on…moving in the direction decided by the organization body. I realized that for the water to stay relevant and useful it should be examined and evaluate from time to time…The three stages that I discovered were:
Freeze
At some point, the ‘group’ (water) need to stop doing (moving) what has been deemed useful or detrimental to their performances. By freezing, the ‘group’ may begin to examine the group elements by its actual size, volume, weight and shape.
Unfreeze
Once the elements have been evaluated, the group will begin to unfreeze (a calculated process) by asking important questions such as why, who, what, when and how the team can perform well again.
Refreeze
A collaborative and effective teams with intentional leadership are able to refreeze at specific point of time to regroup and collect and change to a new form of water with renew goals, roles, processes and relationship.
Many of my peers and senior practitioners that I shared with have agreed that team-building has taken an ambiguous positioning in the context of OD. From event company to hospitality industry, many would claim that they are able to help you to “build-team”. Therefore I urge you to re-examine the purpose and reason for you to send your team for team-building program.
Ask the question: “Why? For what?”. If you are unsure of the purpose for your intended team-building, let’s have a conversation.
I have recently joined a small company and assited with what they sell as “teambuilding”.
I 100% agree with your above argument as i have experienced the phenemena first during the past 3 months.
I assited with three teambuilding initiatives and the senseless sequence of fun activities has baffled me and led me to search for the theoretical base or purpose behind teambuilding. It is a major seller among corporate companies at rather expensive rates and consuming a considerable amount of time. However as an HR profesional, I am not at all convinced that what I have seen has any corporate benefit or contribution towards performance.
Is there any articles on the subject that you would recommend for further reading. I have a major teambuilding session coming up in January and am hoping to compile a much more strategic outcomes based program, addressing specific elements through the activities and creating a very clear link to application in the workplace.
Any words of advice?
Regards
Elmar
Dear Elmar,
Congratulations to your new endeavor. From your sharing, I am sure that you are serious with the work that you do and the approach you plan to undertake. For that, you are already being strategic with your approach towards teambuilding intervention.
As I shared in my blog-post, there are many objectives and purposes towards teambuilding for different people. Therefore, understanding the conviction for teambuilding exercise is the very first step towards a strategic approach. Ask the “WHY” question. But the problem is this; we may not have the luxury to find out “why” or worst still, the stakeholder might not be ready to reveal the true reason.
But if you can have a glimpse of the “why” teambuilding, take it with both hands and manage it carefully. Keep asking “what” is that they want to achieve and “what” would considered a small step towards helping the team to move forward. Once you have gather enough ‘evidence’ for teambuilding, the design and plan to implement the session; which is the “how” would be your call to help the team.
You might want to consider the Tuckman’s model which I am sure you have knowledge about. It does give us a systemic breakdown of the team development stages in accordance to team behaviors. One way to use the model is to find opportunity to backload the stages to the team and mirror the behaviors to the team members after each teambuilding activities. Help them to discover the team-skills to move from one stage to another so that team awareness will be heighten towards the performing stage. One word of caution is that it may not happen in one teambuilding session. The sad thing about team development is not many stakeholders out there would take teambuilding as an organization development approach but often want quick fix for the team in trouble to reach optimum level of performance with minimum care.
There are many articles and concept on the subject which with contemporary technology it is not difficult to obtain. But I would encourage you to use your internal resources – “things that you already know and possesses” to go out there and exercise them. Nothing will come close to your own internal wisdom versus those recycled concept out there.
Keep in touch and let me know how it goes.
sincerely,
allen