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Principles and Practices of Management

Notes team building workshops strive for greater cooperation, better communication, and less
dysfunctional conflict. Experiential learning techniques such as interpersonal trust exercises,
conflict-handling role play sessions, and interactive games are common.
Rote memorization and lecture/discussion are discouraged by team-building experts who prefer
active versus passive learning. Greater emphasis is placed on how work groups get the job done
than on the job itself. Team building generally is carried out in the name of organisation
development (OD). The extensive use of team building appears to be justified. In a survey of
human resource development, managers from 179 Fortune 500 companies, team building
reportedly was the most successful management technique.

Complete coverage of the many team-building techniques would require a separate book.
Consequently, the scope of our present discussion is limited to the purposes of team building,
and the day-to-day development of self management skills. This foundation is intended to give
you a basis for selecting appropriate team-building techniques from the many that you are
likely to encounter in the years ahead.

15.3.1 The Purpose of Team Building/High-performance Teams

According to Richard Beckhard, a respected authority on organisation development, the four
purposes of team building are:
1. To set goals and/or priorities.

2. To analyze or allocate the way work is performed.
3. To examine the way a group is working and its processes (such as norms, decision making,
and communication).

4. To examine relationships among the people doing the work.
Trainers achieve these objectives by allowing team members to wrestle with a simulated or
real-life problem. Outcomes are then analyzed by the group to determine whether group
processes need improvement. Learning stems from recognizing and addressing faulty group
dynamics. Perhaps one subgroup withheld key information from another, thereby hampering
group progress. With cross-cultural teams becoming commonplace in today’s global economy,
team-building is more important than ever.

A nationwide survey of team members from many organisations by Wilson Learning
Corporation provides a useful model or benchmark of what OD specialists expect of teams. The
researchers’ question was simply: What is a high performance team? The respondents were
asked to describe their peak experiences in work teams. Analysis of the survey results yielded
the following eight attributes of high performance teams:
1. Participative leadership: Creating interdependency by empowering, freeing up, and
serving others.

2. Shared responsibility: Establishing an environment in which all team members feel as
responsible as the manager for the performance of the work unit.
3. Aligned on purpose. Having a sense of common purpose about why the team exists and
the function it serves.
4. High communication: Creating a climate of trust, and open, honest communication.
5. Future focused: Seeing change as an opportunity for growth.

6. Focused on task: Keeping meetings focused on results.

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