Effective Team Building For Organizational Success

"Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It's the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results." -Andrew Carnegie

Team building and team work is the key driver in organizational growth. The days of the lone warrior corporate protagonist who may take an organization to fortune 500 lists with his charm and genius are finally over. Organizations are now looking to create teams with people of mathematical abilities to work towards achieving the corporate objectives and goals.

While groups are important in every area of human endeavor whether it be in sports or volunteer work, the scope of this report covers business enterprises.

Teams are formed when:

A blend of skills, knowledge and experience are required to undertake a specific task. A single person may not have such a mix.

On the face of challenges like falling profits, improvements in quality standards, putting together a new job, handle major change initiatives and cross functional co-ordination in large and complex organizations. Teams may be formed for several functions. The list is merely a broad indicator for those kinds of teams that might be formed.

Stages of team development

Tuckman and Jenson have clarified the sequence of the group evolution in their work that is the ideal model to comprehend and manage teams. Teams must go through certain procedure before it can settle down and operate effectively. Understanding the phases of development of this team is important to successful staff management.

Forming

This is the stage once the team members assemble and get together. People are extremely polite, get acquainted with one another and try to estimate their particular roles in the group. Uppermost in the minds of their new team members in the formation stage is where and how they fit in with the group. This phase is marked by simple acceptance of one another, preventing controversies and leadership and assistance from team leader in settling down.

Storming

This phase introduces conflicts and rivalry as each person begins to begin work on the strategy. Stress of this job with Personal differences on issues crop up. Sometimes the problems could be cultural, cultural or simply a matter of asserting ones own advantage in the overall team equation. Interpersonal and communication issues dominate this point resulting in a flare up of confrontation and conflict.

The chief needs utmost restraint and maturity at this stage of team development. He's got to bring forth all of his media skills, emotional intelligence and people management skills in creating the ideal atmosphere, create winning relationships between staff members and bring their attention back on staff vision and goals.

Norming

As conflicts start to get solved, the work flow picks up speed. Folks settle down to more harmonious working relationships. The focus now shifts to common group objectives and performance related problems. A cohesive team that knows its own strengths and weaknesses now moves to peak performance leveraging the complementary skills of its members. This is also the point where the team leader starts to delegate more effectively. Giving the staff members a certain amount of functional autonomy contributes to unleashing the creativity of its members making for a top performing group.

Performing

This is the last stage in which an ideal group identity is made. There's independence and interdependence, learning in addition to sharing knowledge, speed and efficiency. All glitches are smoothened out by the group leader. There are very substantial levels of freedom giving rise to development of new leaders. The operation is it the summit because of high motivation.

A successful team leader knows the different phases of the team formation and development. He oversees the group effectively by moderating his group managerial styles based on the stage of development where the team is passing through.