As a business owner or director, you have probably noticed that some people simply don’t work well together. This, in turn, can delay entire projects because of the time spent resolving issues which could be better spent moving on to the next task at hand. Sometimes even HR is unable to iron out the kinks, and although both (or several!) employees are valuable members on staff, something has to give.
Team building is both an art and a science, and if you want to see smoother operations within your organisation, it’s time to call in the pros. Here are 3 ways team building will impact your business positively.
1. Enhances Communication Within the Team
Have you ever noticed that some of the most talented people are also amongst the worst communicators? It isn’t that they don’t want to have a working relationship with others on the team, but rather, their minds are busy working through problems they are trying to resolve or in creating new processes. Creative people are often difficult to get along with, not by intention, but by lack of focus in the real world.
This is why, before starting with team building activities, it’s important to understand how different people function – their strengths and weaknesses, their way of thinking, and communication, can all affect the way they collaborate with their fellow colleagues. Taking up a team-wide strengths assessment can be a good first step on this path! It can provide a clearer understanding of people’s personalities, thereby making it easier to foster better communication amongst them.
Sometimes two people can be saying the same thing in two different ways and neither realises it! Team building activities can help your team learn better ways of communicating with others by helping them recognise where the breakdown occurs. Talkers learn to be more patient whilst listeners learn to listen better by actually hearing what the other is saying.
Communication is the foundation upon which any team is built. Without a solid foundation, your team is likely to fall apart.
2. Builds Trust for Better Collaboration on Team Projects
Building on better communications, it’s easy to see how trust factors into the equation. It’s hard to trust someone when you aren’t able to communicate with them. Once team building events and strategies help your team communicate better, it’s easier for them to begin trusting each other to get their link in the chain accomplished.
Trust is also a vital factor in this overly-competitive world we have created. It’s not only difficult to trust someone you cannot communicate with, but it is equally difficult to trust someone you fear is after your job. Building trust offers a level of security in which members can work better together to achieve a common goal.
3. A Cohesive Team Is More Committed to Getting Results
Finally, that brings us to the fact that a cohesive team is more committed to getting results. That is to say, they are more committed to reaching that common goal. It doesn’t matter if each member does his or her part perfectly, unless they combine to form a cohesive whole, you simply have a group of parts. Remember the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts. A cohesive team is one in which all those ‘parts’ are moulded together into a project well done.
In order to promote a team-minded spirit, it is suggested that you offer periodic team building activities which you can find through companies such as Team Tactics. From sponsoring workshops to booking events the entire team can attend, there is much you can do to help your members work towards better communications, learn to trust other team members more and then work together as a whole rather than a disjointed sum of parts.
See Your Team as an Automobile Meant to Drive Your Business Forward
Look at your team as you would an automobile driving forwards towards a destination – your goal. There are, on average, over 30,000 parts in an automobile and laid out on an assembly line, you can’t really go anywhere. But, once assembled, you can drive continually as long as you fuel your car. Team building exercises are the fuel, your team members are the parts. Assemble those parts with great team events and you have just positively impacted your business in ways you can only begin to imagine.
