Team building is an activity where individual members, with their unique talents and personalities, integrate with the team to form an organization, which can more effectively deliver results. These are various activities and exercises to support team goals. Organizations of different scales and specialties are known to carry out these activities almost annually, due to their obvious benefits. Activities can range from purely educational, purely motivational, purely recreational, or a synergistic combination of all three.
Team buildings involve an overall facilitator who helps lead the team toward the goal. However, teams can also choose to facilitate themselves with mutual understanding and respect. The facilitation structure may depend on the size or type of team being formed.
Successful teamwork must:
• Be fun: Recreation is a very important aspect of team building. People know each other more for learning when they are having fun. Teams should have activities that are truly enjoyable. Highly competitive activities such as sports should be avoided as members get sidetracked and oriented towards the winning aspect of the game.
• Be Engaging – Multiple team-building activities, done strategically, are encouraged. These activities should involve people using multiple talents and intelligences. Activities that focus solely on a single sphere of intelligence (purely physical or purely mental) are considered boring and may not satisfy the team as a whole. Various activities are available that engage people on multiple levels, from challenging games to non-game-based group activities (such as drum circles or cooking activities).
• Be didactic: Each activity must be able to address an aspect of the required team dynamics. There are activities available that strengthen the communication skills of the team. There are also activities that improve the team’s trust in each other. There are other activities that deal with conflict management and other conjunctural aspects. In addition, each team activity should culminate in a break down session where each member can contribute by sharing the unique lessons learned and incorporating them into the overall goals of the organization.
Team building activities serve as an equal platform where every member is equal. Range should be neglected in these activities to increase overall team strength and effectiveness. With this in mind, people who engage in such activities are known to have an intrinsic drive to achieve success for the overall benefit of the entire organization.