Simple Team Building Concepts

Why do people get up and go to work?

Why do they endure the bleep-bleep-bleep of their alarm clock day after day, the cold floor on their feet, the blaring horns and stresses of rush hour traffic, and their thankless position at AnyCompany Inc.?

Is it because they are inspired by and love their job?

No, they endure it for their paycheck and the security of knowing that as long as they don't screw up too bad, they'll still have that thankless job next week and two years from now.

Does this scene inspire greatness? No. It inspires movies like Office Space and sitcoms like The Office.

Make Everyday Feel Like the Day You Met Your Best Friend

Remember that day in grade school when you met your best friend?

How you ran into the house and yelled to your mom so excitedly, "I met someone at school today!"

What was it we felt back then when connections were much easier to make with other people? And what is it we've lost when those connections are so difficult to make in our everyday lives?

How do we get that back?

A lot of it has to do with being stuck in situations where there is a decreased need to make meaningful connections with others.

We have organizational apathy because our organizations are broken apart like smashed panes of glass.

This is failed leadership at it's core. Leaders are there to put people in situations to succeed, to make connections with others, not allow them to molder in their cubicle like some kind of lab rat.

Ideally, the team environment encourages people to make meaningful connection with their peers.

But how can we insert the right people into the right situations so the right connections are made? In many situations people's attitudes and personalities don't immediately mesh, resentments are formed and you have team dysfunction.

These hum-drum and combative attitudes are exactly why team building "workshops" have turned into big business all over the corporate landscape and employee dissatisfaction is at an all-time high in offices around the world.

Corporate bureaucracy and ineffective leadership crushes the souls of the people who manage to survive beneath it.

Don't Push the River

So what are the core team building concepts you need to establish an engaged environment of purposeful action, goal driven teamwork, and meaningful personal connections?

Maybe it sounds a little like asking "how do you push a river uphill?" But it's not, greatness can and should be achieved through determination to build the foundation of your team on bedrock rather than corporate jargon or team building slogans.

The three great foundational concepts of teamwork in business are:

• Principles Determine Actions
• Expect Only the Best
• Show You Care

These team building concepts are not new. In fact, they are as old as human's ability to organize and work toward a common purpose.

Each foundational concept plays off the other. If the first concept is accounted for, Principles Determine Actions, the next will flow naturally, like water from a spring.

Your core principles are the wellspring of the rest of your team building activities - building your team on a foundation of bedrock rather than sand.

The Tao of Teams

Built upon your core principles, accounted for at all stages of the team building process, your team should be a well-oiled machine of achievers who can complete any task.

Expecting the Best means achieved goals should be expected. The Harvard business professor Robert Rosenthal called this the "Pygmalion effect".

The "Pygmalion Effect" is simply that when someone is expected to succeed they probably will (the inverse is also true). Thus, as the leader of an organization it does you far better to Expect Only the Best from your team because you probably will get it.

Like water flowing downstream, the next principle, Show You Care is a lesson in human nature.

Most people resent being managed, so unless you want to feel resented, don't look over people's shoulders. Encourage your team by supporting their successes, rather than focusing on their faults.

By encouraging success, you set the bar for each individual's achievement. They know exactly what's expected. When you honor someone with a public "job well done" your encourage them toward loftier goals and increased team cohesion.

Making Connections

These team building concepts seem intuitive and they are, they are based on eons of time tested organizational psychology. Yet in the heat of battle, they are often forgotten.

Why is this? Well "this" is the point of this entire website: why do teams so often break down when the going gets a little rough? And what can you do to prevent it.

Your job is to understand these three core team building concepts:

• Principles Determine Actions
• Expect Only the Best
• Show You Care

Do these three things while building your team and you will be farther along the path of success than 99% of your competitors.

These are simple lessons in the emotional intelligence business; yet they are not followed by the majority of team leaders, the sooner you begin to listen to them and apply these team building concepts to your own situation, the more your team will begin to succeed.