Team Building

Good afternoon everyone.

I'd like to talk to you today about ways of getting your employees to act as unit. I shall take only about 5 minutes of your time. To illustrate my talk I've brought along a few slides. I've divided my talk into 3 main parts. Firstly I'd like to say a few words about Team building. Secondly, I'd like to describe types of team building. Thirdly I'll show you Microsoft example of successful team building. If you have any questions I'll be glad to try to answer them at end of my talk.

Let's begin by saying that team building is the art of bringing people together, of uniting the people working toward a single goal and helping them do their individual jobs more efficiently. It brings everyone together, creating bonds and increased productivity. But what is the most effective team building tool for creating real results in your company? That depends on what you're looking for. There are several different philosophies, ranging from the games-oriented weekend outing to a macro-level shift in the whole company, and everything in between.

Turning now to different types of team building. The first type is Personality-based Team building. Members of the team fill out a personality questionnaire and then learn about their own personalities and the personalities of their fellow team members. Second type is Activity-based Team building. Teams carry out challenging tasks, usually in outdoor settings (e.g., an experiential "ropes" course, or an outdoor adventure, such as a survival course or mountain climbing). Next type is Skills-based Teambuilding. team members participate in workshop sessions that require them to learn and practice specific teamwork skills. And the last type is Problem Solving-based Teambuilding. Team members jointly work together to identify and then solve the barriers to effectiveness that the group is experiencing.

Let's move on now Microsoft example. A team of scientists was given the task of designing a major product that would be unveiled within five years. This team was composed of very bright employees from labs around the country, their progress was slow and their meetings were rarely productive because of personality differences between the appointed leader of the team and a very influential member of the team who, in fact, was the "informal" leader of the team.

Each team member completed a personality inventory and then participated in various group exercises to learn about personality differences on the team. In addition, a trained facilitator met separately with the two key individuals creating the tension on the team. The personality test results showed that these two team members were opposite in orientation on several important dimensions. The behavioral consequences of these differences were misunderstanding by each other. Once this was understood, the two