What is the importance of team building?

I don't know the team building practice in other countries. In Malaysia, most of the companies conduct team building outside their premises, usually at resorts or hotels. The question is why do we need team building training? What can we learn from team building?

How to get along and how to work more efficiently.

No one can do it all, and if they did then how do you replace them when they retire or die? The more people who can handle the task the more stable the company. Many hands make light work; if you can divide the tasks among a crew or team mates then you will not only do the job faster you can do it better as each person concentrates on their specialty and doesn't have to keep on top of every single thing. Of course the entire team needs to be aware of what is going on and how their part matches the grand plan. That is a frequent error committed by management. The team isn't the only one who needs to learn team work the manager needs to learn how to organize and control that team.

It is better to work with employees that you like, and team building can do that. They may never be your best friends, but you can always rely on a friend to do more on your behave than just a co-worker. Relationships like this can be critical to making work tolerable and to improve your performance at work.

Things change, people come and go and the tasks and jobs being done by the company change as the company evolves. A team is more flexible, and better able to handle changes and new jobs. A company has to adapt to the changes in the market or die; a team is more flexible and several individuals working on the same thing have a wider scope of ideas and understanding, as well as a larger pool of ideas and knowledge.

Team work also builds better interpersonal skills and that can improve your own life; how you handle your spouse, your friends and your family. Man is a social animal and prefers to operate in social units; teams are just one type of these units.

No one is going to be perfectly in tune with you, there will always be friction. The leaders will try to take over, the bullies will bully, and the weaker ones will be taken advantage of. If bullies learn a better way, if leaders learn that sometimes to lead you have to let others take charge, and if the weak become stronger the team will work together better.

The things you do on team building exercises seem stupid and a waste of time. They can be important though if you take the lessons to heart and try to build a real team. First you have to get everyone involved, not just to be part of the team, but to enjoy the experience as well. Part of team building exercises is that it is away from work and you can have a little fun at it. They are also a change of pace and a disruption of the boring routine. Sure they seem to get in the way of more important work that needs to be done, but in the long run the exercises will help you get your job doneâ€”that is their purpose.

Attitude is critical if any team member goes into the exercise thinking this is a waste of time he or she is going to bring the rest of the team down and harm their performance. You all have to get involved in the spirit of the thing. The best thing about team building exercises is that you can fail safely. Often we learn more from our failures than from our successes. If you fail in the business world then you can get fired, you company can go out of business and you can suffer economically. If you fail in a team building exercise then you only have to handle a little embarrassment. Team building exercises are a time to stretch yourself and to grow. They are a safe time to take chances and experiment. The knowledge of yourself and others gained here can be invaluable when it comes time to handling a crisis or just working better at the day to day.

Wouldnâ€™t you like to come to work and be happy to be there with the people you like and can trust? Wouldnâ€™t it be better to know about their limits and their strengths before something critical happens? What seems like baby games can teach you more than you know IF you let it and get your team into the mood to cooperate. It is a question of attitude and wiliness. Take the chance to play a little, have some fun, and learn about your team.

Team building has to be done at the right time. In the West, and here in New Zealand, there is a widely accepted way of looking at how teams develop and become productive. I'll paste a recent article I wrote on this below. Hope it helps!

How to get your team working like a well oiled machine.
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Getting a team to work together has been a challenge from the earliest times . When there's a project to do, you've got to bring several people together to get it done. But you're dealing with people and people don't always form into a team without some issues surfacing. So researchers study team building because often a lot of money has been invested to quickly get the team working at its best.

For the last 40 years one model of team development has been widely accepted in the West. It was first spelled out in a literature study published by Bruce Tuckman in 1965. In what was to become a seminal piece of research he said there were four stages of a team's life: forming, storming, norming and performing.

Tuckman's conclusion seems to have a ring of truth about it, as researchers since then have widely agreed that when a team forms its members will first want to find out about the others, will need to adjust to them, will quite possibly have conflicts, and may eventually become harmonious and productive.

Dr Tuckman named the first stage "Forming"

In Stage One the members try to find out what the others are like, and discover what's expected of them as people and group members, by pushing the boundaries. This is not a time for innovation, and members generally just do what the team has always done and get help from other members.

Tuckman said that groups then entered stage two, the Storming.

Perfect name for this time of fighting when team members resist being told what to do by the others on the team.

But then stage three begins to unfold, Tuckman said, calling it the Norming stage.

This is a time of talking and telling the others how they feel and think. The group becomes a cohesive unit. New norms and standards are agreed.

And this makes possible the Performing stage in Tuckman's sequence.

It's a dream time for the team's managers. Everyone understands the others and now it's easy and natural to work in harness with the others. Members work together to get jobs completed, to the extent of doing work for the others where that's beneficial. The team leader will be unchallenged and members look out for each other's interests.

Now, Tuckman didn't stop here. He thought about his four stages. A few years later he inserted a stage five and of course there were always going to be rival researchers who debated and refined his paper. But in spite of this, Tuckman's clear outline of the findings of his day, and his appealing labels, have lasted the distance and right up until now are the best explanation of team work that we have.

If you are in a row boat and you need to row to shore it will be a lot easier if everybody is rowing in the same direction.

Get it???

One persons view may or may not be correct. By having a team with several different opinions, it can be discussed and then the best solution chosen to tackle the situation. Very similar to a panel of judges.

As a team, you have more then one brain to call on. YOU have more people dividing up the work so that not one person has to do it all.

Read this.
http://humanresources.about.com/od/involvementteams/a/twelve_tip_team.htm

team building is important in running the company. such activity allows employees to know why it is important and how their efforts can be used effectively in the team. i believe that the success of the company is not based on one person but team work. everybody move in one direction reaching the common goal.

uhhhhhhh...how to work as a team

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