Team building revisited: when team building is done right, organisations reap rewards in team effectiveness, leadership, and positive energy. This article looks at the important motivations behind team dynamics and why team building activities sometimes fail

Today's Manager, Dec-Jan, 2008 by N. Ravindran

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TEAM building isn't merely something organisations do because it creates harmonious work groups, or is fun to do. It is a way to bring out the power of collaboration among individuals. It is a proven method for blending the talents, skills, and inherent creativity of diverse people. This collaboration is behind the strategic decision to empower the work groups to leverage skills, time, and resources for their own benefit and that of the organisation.

Much of the problem of making teams successful in the workplace stems from past perceptions of what teams are, and ignorance of the powerful principles underlying them. Teams are a formal way to actualise collaboration. Collaboration is at the heart of successful decision-making, but somehow this fact eludes many organisations. In teams, the sum total of collaboration is greater than what could have been achieved individually. To test this, think of some decision you need to make, then ask someone for his or her thoughts. If you want to really expand the possibilities, get several people together and ask them to discuss the issue. Then take notes. Later, look at your notes and see how many new facts and ideas have been added.

Thus, team building is a process of awareness building. It's helping people to understand that they are greater collectively than individually. It is an understanding that most of our decisions will be better when some degree of collaboration is applied.

Factors Influencing Team Motivation

Focus or Purpose

Often when asked what the characteristics of successful and rewarding team experiences are, respondents almost always point to a clear purpose, focus, or mission. But further, for long-term motivation, it must be a purpose or mission that aligns with their personal wants and needs.

If the mission is clear, team members might be able to sustain motivation for the duration if they feel it is important. However, if it is a topic that is not in line with their wants and needs, their motivation to continue may diminish.

For instance, take the case of a group of information technologists who were teamed to streamline the process of IT-related server connections. Since they were all IT experts, it was assumed there would be great interest in working on a process that was frustrating users on the way it was designed.

About a month into the group's work, they were having great difficulty maintaining momentum and focus. It was discovered that this was because some of the team members were analysts, others programmers, and some server technicians. Those not working directly with the server connections simply couldn't be interested in the project.

Motivation in this case was lacking because the team's purpose was not in line with some of the members' wants and needs. So one strategy with a lethargic team might be to stop the process, re-visit the team's purpose or mission, and see if there's alignment on it. Even with a team that seems well, recheck once in a while to ensure everything is as it should be.

Challenge

Human beings are gregarious but as with most social animals, they succumb to a survival mechanism called fight or flight syndrome. When presented with a challenge, our defences are alerted to move us to action--either to run away from danger or address it directly.

Many people will say that their most rewarding team experiences resulted from some sort of challenge. Most have heard or come across seemingly mediocre groups that responded to a challenge with heroic success. In most instances, the challenge itself was the motivator.

In the workplace, these challenges occur occasionally. Teams are not presented with stimulating challenges every day. So the question is how to provide challenges to the team at more frequent intervals. An additional criterion for a challenge is the level of difficulty.

If a challenge is too difficult, team members may give up before they start. However, the same result may occur if the members perceive the challenge as too easy. Little energy is required to accomplish something so easily obtained. So for ongoing teams, periodic stimulation in the form of a worthy challenge is another method of maintaining motivation.

Camaraderie

Another factor that emerges from queries about successful teams is camaraderie, meaning comradeship, fellowship, and loyalty. The people on these teams genuinely like each other and work hard to develop and maintain their relationships. Successful teams tend to address both the technical needs and human needs. The groups are well balanced in both technical and human skills. They are equally competent in the work they perform and highly functional in their interpersonal relationships.

Team members seem to understand that it's a lot easier to support your team member when you have a good relationship. This kind of relationship building is open and involves direct communication, frequent praising of each others' contributions, and mutual support.

This is fine for teams whose members like each other, but what if they don't? Much of the time we like or dislike someone, it relates more to how well we understand them. And since our formal training has not addressed this, most of us enter adulthood ill-equipped to deal with the myriad of personalities, temperaments, cultures, values, beliefs, ideologies, religions, and idiosyncratic behaviours of those we meet