Introduction
Team building in an organization is a good approach to enhance the visibility of collaboration. Team building is a source of collaboration or cooperation that brings or depicts the integrity of an organization. Leading a ten-person team in a department is a big challenge. The performance of some team members in previous projects was not good. However, it seems interesting to learn from different web articles and derive several insights regarding team building activities. In this contemporary business era, team building has become a key activity to strengthen the internal workforce and make some predictable outputs.
Top three goals for team building activities
- The goal of the team is to increase overall efficiency and productivity.
- The goal of team building activities is to foster creativity and cognition
- The goal is to enhance the collaborative work and decision-making process and demonstrate integrity
Team members have to work with each other, and therefore, a collaborative approach is necessary. Aligning with modern trends is possible through fostering creativity and innovation. Efficiency is possible when all team members implement or consider efficiency measures. Therefore, these goals are appropriate.
Additional Goals
- Identification of strength and weakness of team members is the goal of team building activity
- Improving morale along with leadership skills is the prominent goal as well.
These goals are not included in the top-three list because of priority. For Instance, team members have to accomplish efficiency, creativity, and collaborative first. These are the basic needs of the team. After meeting these goals, the other two goals can be considered.
Learning from Articles
The big lesson that I learned from these articles is collaboration. People have to work together in different teams. Team leader hands in delegating the work and motivating members to conduct the collaborative decision-making process. The modern business needs collaboration in the internal business process, and it can help employees share an opinion, ideas, thoughts, and many other reservations. Another lesson that I learned from these articles is the identification of the classic problem-solving technique. The focus of the team members should be on the real problem to come up with some pertinent solutions (Ruth, 2016). When making the team in the company, it is imperative for the team leader or manager to change the mindset of all team members. Thus, it is imperative to change the behavior in forming, norming and storming stage of the team or group development to become the most effective and active member. Another learning aspect, which can be obtained from these articles, is communication. Effective communication is the backbone of the team (Workpop, 2017).
Guide to selecting the best alternatives
These two articles are in the limelight due to comprehensive information regarding team-building activities. My previous team failure was due to some traditional approaches of the team building activities. Now, the wide information in these articles helps to select some good alternatives. It is a fact that there are many team building activities which can be adopted to improve team performance. Depending on the nature of the business and assigned task, the team leader or manager can select the best alternative (Peragine, 2017).
Three Best Practices for Team building activities
Writing down Expectations
The prominent team activity is writing down the expectations. The role of the team leader or team manager in this team building activity is vital. For Instance, the team leader can provide a card to each team member and ask to write expectation. Each team member will do it and submit cards to the team leaders. After collecting cards with written expectations, the team leader will write down all expectations on the big whiteboard. He will make bullets and discuss all expectations as key ideas. Interestingly, instead of just focusing on the expectations of team members, the whole team streamlines different ideas to the betterment of the team process (Ruth, 2016). Preview (opens in a new tab)
Changing Mindset
Changing the mindset of the team members is a key team building activity. However, there are many exercises which are to be executed to meet this purpose. For Instance, the best activity for me to change the minds of team members is playing music and giving tickets to watch free sports events. The element of collaboration is quite visible in this activity. It can help them to change the mindset or behavior of team members, and they can work with great motivation. Instead of just sticking team members indoors, this activity is a refreshment to derive more than team tasks. For me, this activity is important to implement to enable team member retention, creativity, and cooperation for a long run (Ruth, 2016).
Toy Car Race
Team members have to find different solutions in complex business projects or situations. Fostering creativity and innovation in the team process is imperative. Every team member should be able to handle the situation and regain team growth. The pertinent team building activity is the Toy Car race. It is an effective team building activity that can lead to some creative outcomes. For Instance, team members have to take the same kind of car. To further distance from the starting point can win the race for the team member (Workpop, 2017).
Team Dynamics
Back-to-Back Drawing
Back-to-back drawing is an effective activity to increase productivity. The team is to be divided into pairs. One member has to describe a shape for another team member to draw on the pad. The purpose is to examine how well one member describes the shape. Conversely, it is also to be examined how well the second member drew the shape. The purpose is to make both members productive.
Appreciating each other
Team cohesion can be attained by creating the culture of appreciation. For Instance, people will give feedback about work to each other. Appreciating is a key activity that can create strong bonding among members, and feedback is a key activity in this regard.
Open Discussion Sessions
An open discussion session depicts a strong link between productivity and cohesion. People can share information and provide their opinions in sessions to improve the process. Sharing information is cohesion and providing the opinion for improvement is productivity. It seems an effective activity that can make the team sustainable.
Finalizing
All these team building activities must be integrated with the goals, vision, and mission teams. The objectivity of the team matters, and it can be justified through the successful execution of team building activities. The three best activities have been selected, which can help to improve the performance of team members in the department.
References
Miller, B. (2015). Quick Team-Building Activities for Busy Managers: 50 Exercises That Get Results in Just 15 Minutes. AMACOM.
Peragine, J. (2017). 365 Low or No Cost Workplace Teambuilding Activities: Games and Exercised Designed to Build Trust & Encourage Teamwork Among Employees. Atlantic Publishing Company.
Ruth, A. (2016, June 28). Five Team-Building Exercises That Increase Collaboration. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/yec/2016/06/28/five-team-building-exercises-that-increase-collaboration/#5a6272d5351a
Workpop. (2017, December 9). 5 Fun Team-Building Activities for Competitive Businesses. Retrieved from https://www.inc.com/workpop/5-fun-team-building-activities-for-competitive-businesses.html
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