Fans of plans, I have a question for you… How many ‘team building’ events have you been on in your career? 

Well, I’m guessing this number may range from between none and far too many to count! So, let’s have a little look at team building and see why getting it right is important. 

What is team building? 

Team building is defined as actions that cause a group of people to work effectively together. That’s it, that’s all we need to know. 

How can we get a group of people to work effectively together? 

Now this is the $1 million (plus VAT, plus inflation) question, if there was a silver bullet answer to this then we’d be living in a very different world – I like to think it would be a very peaceful one at that, but I digress; this blogger will leave world politics to another time! 

There are many different ways that we can try to get people within our workplaces to be more effective as a group, and the main one is to understand how each of us tick. We all have different motives, drives and objectives, but when we step back – we will see that we are (hopefully) working towards similar goals. We all want our work to be a success, we all want to be able to provide for our families and we all want to feel like we are making a positive difference. The difficulty lies with how each of us feel is the best approach to achieve this. 

This is why team building is critical to success. By understanding how and why we each approach a similar problem in very different ways, we can learn from each other and come up with a more rounded plan… a Plantastic result all round! 

Creating your dream team

I don’t know about you, but when I have a day dream moment thinking about my own business – who would I want to come and work with me? I often think back to colleagues past and build my dream team of previous colleagues. If you haven’t thought about this before, why not have a think now… I’m sure a lot of them will be people you worked effectively with, a few that were good for the social aspects, and maybe your mind might be cast back to a few that you (hopefully figuratively) butted heads with! 

The lesson we can learn thinking back over this exercise is making up a team of people that don’t think the same as you, don’t have the same skills sets as you, and possibly don’t even get on well with you is a good thing. If you build a team of yous, then you’ll end up with an echo chamber and your organisation’s shortcomings will be amplified. We need diversity in board rooms, management offices, leading teams and front of house to make sure that our collective thinking allows for a wide range of possibilities.

Here’s an example…

I know that I am an introvert and that I can take a while to choose what I see as the right option. I like to take my time to look at the facts and to make a balanced decision based on that. I find it really challenging to work with someone that is the opposite of me, an extrovert who is comfortable making snap-decisions. 

But while we both may feel uncomfortable with how each of us comes to our decisions, we are all the better for challenging each other and finding the right outcome for the situation at hand. Whether I like it or not, some decisions need to be made quickly – and having someone on board who is adept at working in those pressure situations is a necessity. That doesn’t mean that I won’t gather the facts I can get in the time allowed, meaning that the team will be able to make an informed, if quick decision. 

Build it and they will come

So next time you are in a meeting with your peers, think about what each of you brings to the table – what are the skills that you can each draw upon that will make your team challenge one another, yet maintain an effective group. And what is your team missing? Think about what you might need more of in your team. This is all part of continuous improvement for your organisation.