team
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Steve never had to convince Mike and Jordan to take up any new responsibility; they were always on their toes and accepted new assignments willingly. Why do you think Mike and Jordan were always eager to work ? The answers to this question are the various efforts which their team leader took to motivate and extract the best out of them. This explains team building.
What is Team Building ?
Team building refers to the various activities undertaken to motivate the team members and increase the overall performance of the team. You just can’t expect your team to perform on their own. A motivating factor is a must. Team Building activities consist of various tasks undertaken to groom a team member, motivate him and make him perform his best. We all are human beings and love appreciation. Any individual performing exceptionally well must be appreciated well in public. He feels happy and motivated to perform even better the next time. If any team member has come out with a unique idea; treat him with any thing that makes him happy. Never criticize any team member or demotivate him if he has failed to perform. Ask him to “Buck up”.
Team Building Exercises
Let us throw some light on some team building execises.
Encourage many trust building exercises in your team. Team members must trust each other for the maximum
output. Blindfold half of your team members and ask them to jump over bricks with the help of members who can see. Repeat this exercise and now blindfold those who could see earlier. This exercise goes a long way in building the trust among the team members. An individual might be a little hesitant initially, but the moment he jumps over the brick with his fellow team member without getting hurt, he starts trusting him. The trust factor increases with time and relations among the team members improve.
One must know his fellow team member well. You can’t work with someone you don’t know. Include a lot of exercises
which help the team members know each other well. Make pairs and ask them to write whatever they know about their partner and vice a versa. You can ask anyone to write his partner’s favourite colour, favourite outfit, preferred hangout zone and so on. Ask his partner to correct him if he is wrong in his answers. People know a lot about each other this way and also find out some unknown facts about their partner. Ask the team members to give their introduction one by one once the team is formed.
The team members must be compatible with each other. Include icebreaking activities in the team. Take them out
for picnics; get togethers where they can interact with each other freely on any topic. Allow the individuals to bring their families as well. People come a lot closer this way. Relationships improve. Remember your team member’s birthday, anniversary or any other important date and do not forget to wish him that day. Ask for a treat! This way, individuals are no longer strangers to each other and the bonding increases.
Encourage activities where individuals come together as a single unit and work for a common task. Collect some
even sized sticks, rope, nails, hammer, and glue stick. Ask your team members to construct a bridge out of the sticks using the rope, hammer, gluestick and nails. You will be surprised to see that everyone will be involved in the activity and help each other in making the bridge. The concentration and will power to do something increases and individuals learn to work as a single unit. They all work together, each one contributing something or the other to construct the bridge i.e. accomplish the task assigned to their team.
Need for Team Building - Why Team Building ?
Team Building activities are of utmost importance as they help in the overall development of the team members and in turn improving the team’s performance. It also strengthens the bond among the employees and they feel motivated to work and achieve the targets. Some kind of team building activities must be undertaken from time to time to encourage the team members to work hard and realize their dreams.
Definition of Team Building!
The Kalavati definition of team building refers to any groups or sub-groups: Family, Clubs, Groups, Work teams, Organizations,
Communities Traditional definitions of team building! 'The term 'team building' can refer generally to the selection and motivation of teams or, more specifically, to group self-assessment in the theory and practice of organizational development.' 'When a team in an organizational development context embarks upon a process of self-assessment in order to gauge its own effectiveness and thereby improve performance, it can be argued that it is engaging in team building, although this may be considered a narrow definition.' Sourced from Definition of Team Building- Wikipedia
Business Definition for: Team Building 'The selection and grouping of a mix of people and the development of skills required within the group to achieve agreed objectives.' 'Team is a group of individuals with complementary skills who work together for accomplishing common goals. Working in teams helps build synergy between its members and, as a result, the work, at hand, gets efficiently done.' Definition - bnet.com Dictionary
Kalavati's Definition
Kalavati Definition of team building The integration of purpose, performance and relationship in a team to accomplish goals, so that, the genius of each individual emerges and is used for the higher advancement of everyone. Team building can be summed up three African words - 'Umuntu Ngumuntu Ngabantu.' 'I am because you are, and you are because we are.' Team building takes a person to a people.
team building
Definitions (2) Save to FavoritesShow Examples
1. Philosophy of job design in which employees are viewed as members of interdependent teams instead of as individual workers.
2. Ability to identify and motivate individual employees to form a team that stays together, works together, and achieves together.
Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/team-building.html#ixzz2JA3c1N9k
Differences between Work Groups and Teams
By Marty Brounstein from Managing Teams For Dummies Teams definitely are forms of work groups, but not all work groups are teams. In fact, plain work groups are much more numerous than teams. Work groups function on three levels:
Dependent level Independent level Interdependent level
Here's the breakdown.
Dependent-level work groups
Dependent-level work groups are the traditional work unit or department groups with a supervisor who plays a strong role as the boss. Almost everyone has had some experience with this work setup, especially in a first job. Each person in a dependent-level work group has his or her own job and works under the close supervision of the boss. The boss is in charge and tells the employees the do's and don'ts in their jobs. Helping each other and covering for one another do not occur often and do so mostly under the direction of the supervisor. In fact, most problem solving, work assignments, and other decisions affecting the group come from the supervisor. A dependent-level work group can perform well in the short term. But for the long run, because group members operate separately and mostly at the direction of the supervisor, such work groups don't seem to go anywhere. Maintaining the status quo and keeping operations under control are what they do best. Creating improvements, increasing productivity, and leveraging resources to support one another are quite uncommon with dependent-level work groups.
Independent-level work groups
Independent-level work groups are the most common form of work groups on the business scene. Like a dependent-level work group, each person is responsible for his or her own main area. But unlike the dependent level, the supervisor or manager tends not to function like the controlling boss. Instead, staff members work on their own assignments with general direction and minimal supervision. Sales representatives, research scientists, accountants, lawyers, police officers, librarians, and teachers are among the professionals who tend to work in this fashion. People in those occupations come together in one department because they serve a common overall function, but almost everyone in the group works fairly independently. If members of an independent-level work group receive the managerial guidance and support they need on the job, such a work group can perform quite well.
Interdependent-level work groups
Members of an interdependent-level work group rely on each other to get the work done. Sometimes members have their own roles and at other times they share responsibilities. Yet, in either case, they coordinate with one another to produce an overall product or set
of outcomes. When this interdependence exists, you have a team. And by capitalizing on interdependence, the team demonstrates the truth of the old saying: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. An independent work group can often be brought up to speed faster than aninterdependent group. It simply takes more time to get a group of individuals to work as a team than to set a group of individuals off on their independent assignments. Yet when teams move into a high-functioning and high-producing state, where they capitalize on interdependence, they can outperform all other types of work groups. So, if you want a quick fix, don't look to teams: but if you want to see strong results for the long term, dolook to teams. To call a group a team does not make them a team: wishing for them to work as a team doesn't work either. For a snapshot of the main differences between work groups and teams, take a look at Table 1. As you can see, work groups have a strong individual focus and teams have a strong collective focus. The individual is not lost on a team, but that person's work is coordinated to fit in with the greater good. Team concerns are much more focused on the outcomes of the overall unit rather than an individual's accomplishments. Table 1: Difference Between Work Groups and Teams
Work Groups
Teams
Individual accountability
Individual and mutual accountability
Come together to share information and perspectives
Frequently come together for discussion, decision making, problem solving, and planning.
Focus on individual goals
Focus on team goals
Produce individual work products
Produce collective work products
Define individual roles, responsibilities, and tasks
Define individual roles, responsibilities, and tasks to help team do its work; often share and rotate them
Concern with one's own outcome and challenges
Concern with outcomes of everyone and challenges the team faces
Purpose, goals, approach to work shaped by manager
Purpose, goals, approach to work shaped by team leader with team members
Table 1 also indicates that teams meet more often than traditional work groups. Work groups may meet periodically, based on the manager's style, primarily to hear and share information. Teams, by comparison, do much more than communicate when they meet. Team meetings are forums for planning work, solving work problems, making decisions about work, and reviewing progress. In short, meetings are vital to a team's existence. The last item in Table 1 is crucial: Team leadership is participatory, in contrast to the primarily manager-driven nature of regular work groups. On a team, the manager or team leader frequently involves team members in helping shape the goals and plans for getting the group's work done — may as well get them involved, they've got to do the work! But in other kinds of work groups, managers more commonly work with staff individually to set goals and determine assignments. Of course, in many cases, managers just assign work with little discussion or collaboration with the staff members. And staff are then left to figure out what's expected and how best to get it done.
Difference Between Group and Team
Group vs Team Group and Team may seem to sound similar but the term group and team are very different from each other. Though they may often be used interchangeably but it is important that we can distinguish one from the other so as to accurately provide the proper definition. Group A group is usually composed of 2-4 members that work interdependently with each other to a significant degree. They are committed to work together and willing to be handled by a leader. Though they are interdependent with each other but still they have individual responsibility that they have to perform, and that specific accountability, when done well, can help the group accomplish their goals. Team A team is considered to work interdependently and is committed to achieve one common goal. They share the responsibilities and deliver results until they reached the conceived output of their efforts. They are usually composed of 7-12 members and are helping each other to develop new skills to which it can help improve their performance. They don’t usually rely on a leader for supervision. Difference between Group and Team So which is better a team or a group? They basically are the same. Although a group is easier to manage and they are great for short term output, since they would divide the work amongst their skills, they can easily get the job done. A team on the other hand works best for long term projects, since they work together as a whole equally distributing the tasks at hand regardless if they have the proper skills or not. This paves the way for the each member of the team to have ample time to develop abilities that can further enhance their performance as a whole. Due to the span of time that the members spend with each other, it’s a good ground as well for camaraderie within the team.
Read more: http://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-group-and-team/#ixzz2JA4gWH00 Difference between Group and Team So which is better a team or a group? They basically are the same. Although a group is easier to manage and they are great for short term output, since they would divide the work amongst their skills, they can easily get the job done. A team on the other hand works best for long term projects, since they work together as a whole equally distributing the tasks at hand regardless if they have the proper skills or not. This paves the way for the each member of the team to have ample time to develop abilities that can further enhance their performance as a whole. Due to the span of time that the members spend with each other, it’s a good ground as well for camaraderie within the team. It all boils down to the need for skills and performance. It may also be dependent on the complexity of a certain project, as to which would be more appropriate to form to have the end result delivered. In brief • A group is usually composed of 2-4 members that work interdependently with each other to a significant degree. They are committed to work together and willing to be handled by a leader. • A team is considered to work interdependently and is committed to achieve one common goal. They are usually composed of 7-12 members and are helping each other to develop new skills to which it can help improve their performance.
Read more: http://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-group-and-team/#ixzz2JA4uP3dY
What is Team Building ?
Team building refers to the various activities undertaken to motivate the team members and increase the overall performance of the team. You just can’t expect your team to perform on their own. A motivating factor is a must. Team Building activities consist of various tasks undertaken to groom a team member, motivate him and make him perform his best. We all are human beings and love appreciation. Any individual performing exceptionally well must be appreciated well in public. He feels happy and motivated to perform even better the next time. If any team member has come out with a unique idea; treat him with any thing that makes him happy. Never criticize any team member or demotivate him if he has failed to perform. Ask him to “Buck up”.
Team Building Exercises
Let us throw some light on some team building execises.
Encourage many trust building exercises in your team. Team members must trust each other for the maximum
output. Blindfold half of your team members and ask them to jump over bricks with the help of members who can see. Repeat this exercise and now blindfold those who could see earlier. This exercise goes a long way in building the trust among the team members. An individual might be a little hesitant initially, but the moment he jumps over the brick with his fellow team member without getting hurt, he starts trusting him. The trust factor increases with time and relations among the team members improve.
One must know his fellow team member well. You can’t work with someone you don’t know. Include a lot of exercises
which help the team members know each other well. Make pairs and ask them to write whatever they know about their partner and vice a versa. You can ask anyone to write his partner’s favourite colour, favourite outfit, preferred hangout zone and so on. Ask his partner to correct him if he is wrong in his answers. People know a lot about each other this way and also find out some unknown facts about their partner. Ask the team members to give their introduction one by one once the team is formed.
The team members must be compatible with each other. Include icebreaking activities in the team. Take them out
for picnics; get togethers where they can interact with each other freely on any topic. Allow the individuals to bring their families as well. People come a lot closer this way. Relationships improve. Remember your team member’s birthday, anniversary or any other important date and do not forget to wish him that day. Ask for a treat! This way, individuals are no longer strangers to each other and the bonding increases.
Encourage activities where individuals come together as a single unit and work for a common task. Collect some
even sized sticks, rope, nails, hammer, and glue stick. Ask your team members to construct a bridge out of the sticks using the rope, hammer, gluestick and nails. You will be surprised to see that everyone will be involved in the activity and help each other in making the bridge. The concentration and will power to do something increases and individuals learn to work as a single unit. They all work together, each one contributing something or the other to construct the bridge i.e. accomplish the task assigned to their team.
Need for Team Building - Why Team Building ?
Team Building activities are of utmost importance as they help in the overall development of the team members and in turn improving the team’s performance. It also strengthens the bond among the employees and they feel motivated to work and achieve the targets. Some kind of team building activities must be undertaken from time to time to encourage the team members to work hard and realize their dreams.
Definition of Team Building!
The Kalavati definition of team building refers to any groups or sub-groups: Family, Clubs, Groups, Work teams, Organizations,
Communities Traditional definitions of team building! 'The term 'team building' can refer generally to the selection and motivation of teams or, more specifically, to group self-assessment in the theory and practice of organizational development.' 'When a team in an organizational development context embarks upon a process of self-assessment in order to gauge its own effectiveness and thereby improve performance, it can be argued that it is engaging in team building, although this may be considered a narrow definition.' Sourced from Definition of Team Building- Wikipedia
Business Definition for: Team Building 'The selection and grouping of a mix of people and the development of skills required within the group to achieve agreed objectives.' 'Team is a group of individuals with complementary skills who work together for accomplishing common goals. Working in teams helps build synergy between its members and, as a result, the work, at hand, gets efficiently done.' Definition - bnet.com Dictionary
Kalavati's Definition
Kalavati Definition of team building The integration of purpose, performance and relationship in a team to accomplish goals, so that, the genius of each individual emerges and is used for the higher advancement of everyone. Team building can be summed up three African words - 'Umuntu Ngumuntu Ngabantu.' 'I am because you are, and you are because we are.' Team building takes a person to a people.
team building
Definitions (2) Save to FavoritesShow Examples
1. Philosophy of job design in which employees are viewed as members of interdependent teams instead of as individual workers.
2. Ability to identify and motivate individual employees to form a team that stays together, works together, and achieves together.
Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/team-building.html#ixzz2JA3c1N9k
Differences between Work Groups and Teams
By Marty Brounstein from Managing Teams For Dummies Teams definitely are forms of work groups, but not all work groups are teams. In fact, plain work groups are much more numerous than teams. Work groups function on three levels:
Dependent level Independent level Interdependent level
Here's the breakdown.
Dependent-level work groups
Dependent-level work groups are the traditional work unit or department groups with a supervisor who plays a strong role as the boss. Almost everyone has had some experience with this work setup, especially in a first job. Each person in a dependent-level work group has his or her own job and works under the close supervision of the boss. The boss is in charge and tells the employees the do's and don'ts in their jobs. Helping each other and covering for one another do not occur often and do so mostly under the direction of the supervisor. In fact, most problem solving, work assignments, and other decisions affecting the group come from the supervisor. A dependent-level work group can perform well in the short term. But for the long run, because group members operate separately and mostly at the direction of the supervisor, such work groups don't seem to go anywhere. Maintaining the status quo and keeping operations under control are what they do best. Creating improvements, increasing productivity, and leveraging resources to support one another are quite uncommon with dependent-level work groups.
Independent-level work groups
Independent-level work groups are the most common form of work groups on the business scene. Like a dependent-level work group, each person is responsible for his or her own main area. But unlike the dependent level, the supervisor or manager tends not to function like the controlling boss. Instead, staff members work on their own assignments with general direction and minimal supervision. Sales representatives, research scientists, accountants, lawyers, police officers, librarians, and teachers are among the professionals who tend to work in this fashion. People in those occupations come together in one department because they serve a common overall function, but almost everyone in the group works fairly independently. If members of an independent-level work group receive the managerial guidance and support they need on the job, such a work group can perform quite well.
Interdependent-level work groups
Members of an interdependent-level work group rely on each other to get the work done. Sometimes members have their own roles and at other times they share responsibilities. Yet, in either case, they coordinate with one another to produce an overall product or set
of outcomes. When this interdependence exists, you have a team. And by capitalizing on interdependence, the team demonstrates the truth of the old saying: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. An independent work group can often be brought up to speed faster than aninterdependent group. It simply takes more time to get a group of individuals to work as a team than to set a group of individuals off on their independent assignments. Yet when teams move into a high-functioning and high-producing state, where they capitalize on interdependence, they can outperform all other types of work groups. So, if you want a quick fix, don't look to teams: but if you want to see strong results for the long term, dolook to teams. To call a group a team does not make them a team: wishing for them to work as a team doesn't work either. For a snapshot of the main differences between work groups and teams, take a look at Table 1. As you can see, work groups have a strong individual focus and teams have a strong collective focus. The individual is not lost on a team, but that person's work is coordinated to fit in with the greater good. Team concerns are much more focused on the outcomes of the overall unit rather than an individual's accomplishments. Table 1: Difference Between Work Groups and Teams
Work Groups
Teams
Individual accountability
Individual and mutual accountability
Come together to share information and perspectives
Frequently come together for discussion, decision making, problem solving, and planning.
Focus on individual goals
Focus on team goals
Produce individual work products
Produce collective work products
Define individual roles, responsibilities, and tasks
Define individual roles, responsibilities, and tasks to help team do its work; often share and rotate them
Concern with one's own outcome and challenges
Concern with outcomes of everyone and challenges the team faces
Purpose, goals, approach to work shaped by manager
Purpose, goals, approach to work shaped by team leader with team members
Table 1 also indicates that teams meet more often than traditional work groups. Work groups may meet periodically, based on the manager's style, primarily to hear and share information. Teams, by comparison, do much more than communicate when they meet. Team meetings are forums for planning work, solving work problems, making decisions about work, and reviewing progress. In short, meetings are vital to a team's existence. The last item in Table 1 is crucial: Team leadership is participatory, in contrast to the primarily manager-driven nature of regular work groups. On a team, the manager or team leader frequently involves team members in helping shape the goals and plans for getting the group's work done — may as well get them involved, they've got to do the work! But in other kinds of work groups, managers more commonly work with staff individually to set goals and determine assignments. Of course, in many cases, managers just assign work with little discussion or collaboration with the staff members. And staff are then left to figure out what's expected and how best to get it done.
Difference Between Group and Team
Group vs Team Group and Team may seem to sound similar but the term group and team are very different from each other. Though they may often be used interchangeably but it is important that we can distinguish one from the other so as to accurately provide the proper definition. Group A group is usually composed of 2-4 members that work interdependently with each other to a significant degree. They are committed to work together and willing to be handled by a leader. Though they are interdependent with each other but still they have individual responsibility that they have to perform, and that specific accountability, when done well, can help the group accomplish their goals. Team A team is considered to work interdependently and is committed to achieve one common goal. They share the responsibilities and deliver results until they reached the conceived output of their efforts. They are usually composed of 7-12 members and are helping each other to develop new skills to which it can help improve their performance. They don’t usually rely on a leader for supervision. Difference between Group and Team So which is better a team or a group? They basically are the same. Although a group is easier to manage and they are great for short term output, since they would divide the work amongst their skills, they can easily get the job done. A team on the other hand works best for long term projects, since they work together as a whole equally distributing the tasks at hand regardless if they have the proper skills or not. This paves the way for the each member of the team to have ample time to develop abilities that can further enhance their performance as a whole. Due to the span of time that the members spend with each other, it’s a good ground as well for camaraderie within the team.
Read more: http://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-group-and-team/#ixzz2JA4gWH00 Difference between Group and Team So which is better a team or a group? They basically are the same. Although a group is easier to manage and they are great for short term output, since they would divide the work amongst their skills, they can easily get the job done. A team on the other hand works best for long term projects, since they work together as a whole equally distributing the tasks at hand regardless if they have the proper skills or not. This paves the way for the each member of the team to have ample time to develop abilities that can further enhance their performance as a whole. Due to the span of time that the members spend with each other, it’s a good ground as well for camaraderie within the team. It all boils down to the need for skills and performance. It may also be dependent on the complexity of a certain project, as to which would be more appropriate to form to have the end result delivered. In brief • A group is usually composed of 2-4 members that work interdependently with each other to a significant degree. They are committed to work together and willing to be handled by a leader. • A team is considered to work interdependently and is committed to achieve one common goal. They are usually composed of 7-12 members and are helping each other to develop new skills to which it can help improve their performance.
Read more: http://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-group-and-team/#ixzz2JA4uP3dY
