The importance of team building

The importance of team building in any organization cannot be over emphasized as it makes it possible to set target and goals. The critical decision for any manager or leader who wants to get higher performance from a small group of people, is determining whether the group should try to work as a team or whether they should be satisfied with what is called “single-leader unit” discipline.

Image showing colleagues at work fist-bumping

What is Team Building?

Team building is the use of different types of interventions that are aimed at enhancing social relations and clarifying team members’ roles, as well as solving tasks and interpersonal problems that affect team functionality.

Team building was originally a group process intervention aimed at improving interpersonal relations, social interactions and team bonding.

Over time, team building activities has developed to include achieving results, meeting goals and accomplishing tasks. It refers to the activities in which teams can engage to change their context, composition or team competencies to improve performance and foster corporate team building.

As a business owner, one of the most important things when it comes to having a successful company is to create a cohesive team of professionals. Getting the best team for your business can be a little tricky, as people won’t be able to work together all the time, which means that you will need to find additional ways to get the best results for your company. This is where the team building activities come into play.

Team building activities have been created with the sole purpose of providing your employees with a way to connect with each other, understand their expectations and ideas, all with the outcome of becoming a much better, more cohesive team!

The Importance of team building

Trust building

One of the main purposes of the team building activities is to build trust amongst the employees. Trust can either form or destroy a team, and the only way for a team to be glued together and productive is to have trustworthy members, on whom the others can count on at all times. In addition, building trust in the team will make them more comfortable and they will work harder, helping the others to achieve the goals that the company has.

Easing the conflicts

In the business world, numerous conflicts can appear, based on the employee personalities. Through team building activities, the co-workers can ease the conflicts because they manage to know the personalities of the other team members, something that leads to better results at all times. In order to get the best out of team building activities, it’s recommended to hold them away from the office, be it in a hotel conference room, a park or anywhere else.

Team building increases collaboration

Through team building, the team members will start creating a strong bond between them, while also generating an awareness of interdependency. These activities are requiring the employees to participate all at once, something that manages to showcase the skills of each person and how they can help their team efficiently.

It eases communication

One of the main struggles that many employees have is definitely communication. Being able to better communicate with the others can be a major hassle, but thanks to these activities each person in the group will be able to talk, present himself/herself and this way they are bound to feel welcome in the company’s family and their team.

Corporate Team Building

Corporate team building constitute four elements namely;

• Goal setting (aligning around goals)
• Interpersonal-relationship management (Building effective working relationships)
• Role clarification (Reducing team members’ role ambiguity) and
• Problem solving (Finding solutions to team problems)

These team-development interventions have been tested and proven to have positive effects on cognitive and effective processes and performance team outcomes.

Team building in Singapore has seen the strongest effect on effective and process outcomes.

Indoor and Outdoor Team building activities is one of the most widely used group development interventions in organisations today. Team-development interventions were found to have the largest effects on financial measures of organisational performance.

Recent meta-analyses show that team building activities, including team training, improve both a team’s objective performance and supervisory subjective ratings on performance as well as team bonding.

To design, develop and support a highly effective team, use the following guidelines:

1. Set clear goals for the results to be produced by the team: Corporate team building goals should be designed to be “SMART.” This is an acronym for: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound.
2. Set clear objectives for measuring the ongoing effectiveness of the team: Team building activities should be objectives so as to achieve the overall goals.

Also, write these objectives down for eventual communication and discussion with all team members.

3. Define a mechanism for clear and consistent communications among team members: Communication is the most important trait of a successful team bonding.
4. Define a procedure for members to make decisions and solve problems: Corporate team building regularly encounter situations where they must make decisions and solve problems in a highly effective manner.
5. Develop staffing procedures (recruiting, training, organising, replacing): Corporate team building identifies what roles and expertise are needed on the group in order to achieve the group’s purpose and plans – they staff according to plans, not personalities. New group members go through a systematic process to join the group – they understand the group’s purpose, their role, their next steps and where to get help.
6. Assign the role of leader – to ensure systems and practices are followed: The leader focuses on the systems and practices in the team, not on personalities of its members so as to ensure team bonding.
7. Plan team building activities to support trust and working relationships:

Team Building Activities

Team building activities can include a retreat in which members introduce themselves, exercises in which members help each other solve a short problem or meet a specific and achievable goal or an extended period in which members can voice their concerns and frustrations about their team assignments.

11. Regularly monitor and report on status of team members toward achieving the goal: It is amazing how often a team starts out with a carefully designed plan, but then abandons the plan once the initial implementation of the plan is underway.
12. Regularly celebrate team members’ accomplishments: One of the best ways to avoid burnout is to regularly celebrate accomplishments. Otherwise, members can feel as if they are on treadmill that has no end.

When all these are put in place, there is no doubt that there will be actualisation of goals and objectives in an effective and efficient manner in any organization.

In conclusion, team building is very important and it manages to glue teams of employees together in order to be more productive for your company. Through team bonding, all corporate and small businesses alike have the ability to get a more productive team, which leads to a faster production, better marketing and overall an increase in your revenue margin. Through these activities and team bonding, any company can achieve success!