Success in building high-performance teams in any organization has enormous benefits for the business, its Customers, the teams, and each member of the team. To achieve success in team building, it is important to have a strict focus on the objectives and goals, as well as the benefits of team building for that specific business or workplace.
general objectives
Some think it’s about playing silly games or engaging in irrelevant and expensive activities outside of work. Managers or business people who believe this will quickly dismiss the concept as a total waste of money and energy. Others who have workplace problems with group conflicts, poor performance, or demotivated staff may see team building as a positive, but unattainable goal. They do not have a clear understanding of team building or indeed the role of leadership in achieving high performance.
Team building is a PROCESS that takes place over time. The beginning of the process is where there is a group of people, two or more, and a leader. The end of the process is where there is a high-performing team, who are highly motivated to perform better and better, who have well-developed processes and systems to organize their workload, and who derive immense satisfaction from their shared achievements.
The general objectives are to achieve this high performance, to develop the group through the various stages of development, until it achieves high performance. However, like any other process, there are different steps or stages, and there are quite different objectives and goals at each stage. Focusing on the RIGHT goals at each stage and changing your goals as you go through the process will help you achieve high performance.
The objectives in stage one
In the first stage of team building, the Formation stage, there are very identifiable objectives and goals. These objectives MUST be achieved before the group can move on to the next stage. The role of the team leader is to ensure that the objectives are met.
The objectives in the Training stage are:
1. Link the group, so that they get to know each other and begin to have a sense of team. It is at this stage that team building activities will help bring them together.
2. To align them with your shared purpose, goals and objectives
3. To establish a positive team culture, beliefs, values, and standards of behavior.
4. Establish the role of the leader
The objectives of the second stage
Some of the initial goals will continue to this stage, but other goals will be introduced to further develop the team. This stage is called the Storm stage, where members may challenge their shared purpose, leadership, or behavioral norms.
The objectives at this stage are:
1. To keep them aligned with your purpose and goals
2. Develop good working relationships among all members, giving them the experience of working with different team members.
3. Encourage shared problem solving and the generation of new ideas.
4. Introduce processes to work together effectively, eg daily meetings, quick meetings to resolve issues, regular state-of-game meetings, communication systems, etc.
5. Set clear short-term goals and methods to celebrate achievements and milestones
The objectives of the third stage
By the time the team has moved past the Storm stage, they will have grown closer and have a deep sense of working together to achieve their shared purpose. This stage is called the standardization stage, where you work well together and have effective processes and systems.
To take the team to the next stage, the focus changes.
Not many teams reach the fourth stage, the high performance team. The reason for this is usually that they get stuck at the normalization stage. In order to move the team forward, the goal now is to change the approach quite drastically.
Until now, the idea has been that there is no ‘me’ in the team. The goal is to unite the team to achieve their shared goals. Now the objective is to recover the ‘I’ of the Team, to keep them together, but also to develop excellence and individual specialization.
The objectives at this stage are:
1. To increase business awareness, so that the team and individual members can take more responsibility
2. Encourage problem solving, innovation and leadership for specific projects or tasks. The leader delegates to the team or to small project groups.
3. Modify or change the processes so that they assume more responsibility. Team meetings are down, team project teams are up. The leadership of projects or meetings rotates.
4. Get the team to set its own goals
With this clarity of the team building goal ladder, you will have a much better chance of developing your team effectively.