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How Well Does Your Team Gel?

Good efficient teams who work well together will boost your company’s productivity to new heights. This means better results, higher productivity and more profitability. On the other hand teams that struggle to cooperate, who compete unnecessarily and have no cohesion can cost you your business dearly. This is why many firms have turned to team building exercises and events. The term ‘team building’ is often used as strategy for when organizations are looking for a solution to address certain issues, the root of which are likely to stem from poor communication systems or unclear leadership. These problems quickly lead to unproductive teams with no clear vision of how to even be successful.

Reasons why your company may need team building:

One of the challenges facing employers these days is to find employees who have the ability to work effectively in a team. This is especially true for Credit Providers operating large call centers and large DC firms who have many staff members. These days it is a problem that many employees place a bit too much emphasis in self-interest- rather than focusing on collaborating with others.
Due to the internet many firms now work out of different offices [like our Debtfree DIGI team]. This can present challenges since often such teams are unable to build concrete face to face relationships. With SA being so culturally diverse many firms find that they are hiring team members who have dissimilar languages, cultures, values and approaches to solving the problems. Another reason why you may need to look at team building is that often team members haven’t ever agreed on how they will deliver a product or a service or the steps required to get something done.

Team Building to the Rescue

Team building is basically a collective term for various types of activities used to enhance social relationships among your staff and to help define individual workers roles within teams, and often involves collaborative tasks. It is distinct from training, which is normally designed to improve the efficiency of the process as an individual not as part of a team.
Team building can really help with Improving communication, boosting morale, motivation, it can be an ice breaker to help your team to get to know each other better, learn effective strategies, improve productivity, learn about one’s strengths and weaknesses etc. Formal definitions of team building normally includes the following aspects:
• Goal setting: planning together focused on common goals
• Interpersonal-relationship management: Building effective working relationships
• Role clarification: Reducing team members’ role ambiguity so everyone knows where they fit in.
• Problem solving: Finding solutions to team problems

The Effect on Performance

Team building has been scientifically proven to positively affect team effectiveness for all size firms and push up productivity. While studies indicate that teams with 10 or more members appear to benefit the most from team building interventions it still benefits smaller teams ( but simply not as drastically since they already tend to work closer together and know each other).

Try your Own Team Building Activities

think bigThe Big Picture Game
Time Required: 30 minutes
This problem solving activity requires that the leader choose a well known picture or cartoon that is full of detail. The picture needs to be cut into as many equal squares as there are participants in the activity. Each participant should individually be given a piece of the “puzzle” and instructed to create an exact copy of their piece of the puzzle only five times bigger than its original size. They are posed with the problem of not knowing why or how their own work affects the larger picture. The leader can pass out pencils, markers, paper, and rulers in order to make the process simpler and run more smoothly. When all the participants have completed their enlargements, ask them to assemble their pieces into a giant copy of the original picture on a table. This simple problem solving activity will teach participants how to work in a team and it demonstrates ‘departmental’ working, which is the understanding that each person working on their own part contributes to an overall group result.

lazy kittenFake Lazy
Time Required: 1 hour
The group leader should present participants with this fake problem: The hour was going to be spent doing a problem solving activity, but as the group leader – you don’t know any and you don’t want to do one that the participants have already heard or tried previously. The goal- or problem – then, is to have each group of participants come up with a new problem solving activity that they’ve invented themselves. Groups should be no larger than four or five people and at the end of the hour, each group must come up and present their new problem solving activity. Aside from being a problem solving activity in and of itself, this activity also promotes creativity, communication, trust, and time management, among other things and is good if you really are lazy.

 

happy teamA Day Out
Time Required: Full day
More of an investment in time (with perhaps a better return) may be a day out of the office at a venue while busy with a fun group activity. This can be especially helpful when introducing new team members and rewarding your team when they perform well. Adrenaline also helps so things like Abseiling or Zip Lining are safe but exciting. Lonely Planet called Cape Canopy Tours Zip Lining (here in SA, in the Cape) their number 2 experience on the entire planet. Imagine: you could send your team members flying over the deep, deep canyons of the Hottentots Holland. Pretty soon everyone on the team will get to know a lot more about each other. That and the screams as people go across the 320m long zip lines over the deep valleys are just plain funny (even if you are the one doing it). Some adrenaline and time away from the office will quickly bond your team closer than ever and allow people to know one another in a different environment. Adding a bit of excitement to whatever outing you arrange will drastically improve the results. A day at the 1652 tea cozy museum will probably not be a good investment in time and energy. So, choose wisely.

Invest in Your Team

If you are finding that recently your team is less effective then they can be, than they should be then maybe you need to arrange for some team building. From Zip Lining to picture drawing and trust falls the options are varied. Find one that works for you and see how it boosts team moral and effectiveness. If it makes sense to you to service and care for your car to get the most out of it and if you feel that building maintenance is better than allowing your home to crumble around you then you no doubt see the benefit of paying your debt review team some love and attention. It may not seem like work, at first, but the benefits to your teams productivity will soon be felt.

 

 

 

(For more info on the Cape Canopy Tour in Elgin you can email: info@capecanopytour.co.za or call +27 (0)21 3000 501)