Team Building Skills

The term 'team building' refers to a range of activities executed in order to enhance the performance of a team. Primarily, a component of organizational development in business context, team building has also been applied in various other fields, including sports, academics, or just a group of individuals working for a particular cause. In simple words, team building is a process which inculcates the importance of participation, collaboration, unity and other such team building skills in the team members to enhance the performance of the group or organization as a whole.

Development of a Team

There are four stages of team formation. An efficient team is formed after going through these four stages.

• Forming - Team members get to know each other and their roles in the team.
• Storming - Members come up with ideas which are discussed within the team.
• Norming - Differences pertaining to ideas are resolved.
• Performing - A perfect team is created and the performance graph goes upwards.

Whilst going through these stages the team members assess their roles as well as the roles of other team members.

Effective Team Building Skills

As a leader, you need to know that team building doesn't happen on its own. You will get a group of people, but you need to put in some efforts to carve that group into a perfect team, which can yield good results. This can be done through various team building activities such as trust building exercises and outdoor team building games.

Coordination Within the Team
When it comes to team building, one of the most important aspects of a successful team is coordination between the team members. Only when information will seep through each layer of the organization, various fractions of the team will know what the other fractions expect from them. Ideas and suggestions communicated during team meetings have to be properly scrutinized and implemented if feasible.

Efficiency and Competence Levels
As the leader of the team, the individual must be well versed with the efficiency of the team members and thrive to increase it with time. The competency levels of the team members does reflect on the final achievements of the team as a whole. Therefore, it's important that the team leader ensures that every person in the team gives his or her best. This is, in fact, one of the most important skills that the leaders to inculcate in their team.

Distribution of Power and Responsibility
Each member of the team should be given equal freedom. They should be motivated to come up with new ideas, methods, skills etc to enhance team productivity. Encouraging such behavior will fine-tune the participation by all team members, thus improving the efficiency of the team as a whole. At the same time, it's also important that all the team members are aware about their responsibilities and limits. Untoward behavior, if any, should be promptly brought under check.

Team Bonding
Providing team members with a flexible work environment can help in ensuring that the members give their best performance. The flexibility aspect can be defined as the open mindedness and trust between the members of the team. Leaders can work to ensure that there is proper bonding within the team, and personal differences if any are promptly resolved. Trust doesn't just refer to trust within the team members, but also the trust of the organization leadership on the team.

Optimal Performance
The team as a whole should be accountable for the results as well as the stipulated deadlines. Instead of coaxing team members to give their best performance or to complete the specified targets, the leader should ideally make the members understand the importance of giving their best performance, achieving their targets, teamwork, etc. Once the team understands this, they will indeed work as a single unit which will indirectly show in the performance of the organization. Optimal performance is in fact the best measure of proper team functioning.

Ideally team building workshops feature various games and activities which can provide members of the team a work friendly environment - and bring out the best in them. All these efforts are undertaken only to ensure optimal performance from available resources.