"What is Team Building?"

By Jesse Boland

"What is team building?"

It's a question many frustrated leaders finally ask themselves only when they are at their wit's end.

You must draw on language, logic and simple common sense to determine essential issues and establish a concrete course of action. -Abraham Lincoln

This question should be the first step every leader takes when establishing a new team or redeveloping an old one - many business people spend half a decade in business school learning this fact. But in the real world,the question is rarely asked. Why do you think this is?

At it's core, team building is simply organizing and building a culture and community of kindred spirits; individuals assembled for a common purpose or goal.

The simple concept often lulls people into thinking that building a team is simple too.

On paper, team building is simple. 

But that's where most companies and organizations lose sight of their effective team building idea and get into the realm of opinion on teamwork. So how can organizations and companies improve teamwork systematically, using important teamwork principles?

Where can you find team building examples that will help you improve the effectiveness of your organization?

We need to start at the root idea of what the importance of what team building really is, and how you can harness the basics of team building quickly.

Teamwork: The Untapped Potential of Organizational Greatness

Teams can be built for darn near anything: building a sports team, military squads, marketing teams, invention companies, neighborhood watch, religious organizations, environmental watchdog groups. . . you get the idea.  Anywhere difficult problems need to be solved, teams can (and should) be built.

The great power of teams lies in their promise of greatness.  

The promise is huge. What if you had a well-oiled team that not only met every objective, but blew it out of the water? 26% sales above your team's target number? 43% better customer retention rate than the industry average. A 450% decrease in workplace accidents. Great teams make things happen!

Real situations with real results - teamwork in action, just by harnessing the power of a focused team.

Great teams are able to focus each individual’s strengths while hiding their weaknesses in the strengths of others.  As a team leader your job is to simply facilitate cohesiveness and urge the entire team forward to achieve the lofty goals you have set.

On paper, building teams seems logical, simple and effective.

BUT, if team building is so simple and effective why does it fail so often?

For one, teams don't live on paper.

And, as the complex creatures we humans are, we needlessly complicate things. The things we don't complicate - we tend to ignore entirely.

Empowering Team Success Starts With You
and You Too. . .

The easy answer: responsibility for your team's success lies with you - the team leader.

You conceived the idea, set the objectives, put the team together, and managed your team until their failure became as apparent as the nose on your face. Right?

Sure, many teams never reach their potential.  Many teams end up as marginally effective, bickering, back-stabbing swarms of non-team players. Or worse yet, end up totally ineffective alcoves of angst ridden corporate infighters.

The main reason for these utter failures occurs because most people never ask themselves "What is Team Building?" before setting out to build their team.

The "team" is put together with the dysfunction built into it. . . Your team is doomed before it ever takes the field.

Why?

Because most leaders never get around to asking themselves "what is team building?" until their team is failing so miserably that their job or their life is in jeopardy.

The more difficult answer: everyone takes responsibility for the team's success on a team built for greatness.

So the next time you ask yourself "What is Team Building?"

You Know Team building is:

Knowing Your Core Values
Positioning Individuals Together for a Common Cause
Keeping Them Together In Order to Achieve Your Set Objectives

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