5 Steps for Better Teamwork in the Office
- Understand what becoming a better team looks like. Sit your team down. Explain to them that this is going to involve activities aimed at establishing the capability of group members to work effectively together. These can be simple kid games, or challenges involving complex and novel tasks that require collaboration utilizing problem solving skills.
- Decide what kind of team you are. Now that you have gone over what you will be doing today decide what kind of areas you need to work on. Create a list of exercises you think will address your needs. Survival exercises improve communication.
- Avoid competitive approaches. The best way to destroy a team building day is to be or foster a competitive environment. Competition leads to a person or team working against others. This is far more likely to drive people away from each other which defeats the purpose of team building!
- Use your role to foster a good environment. As the leader you can tailor the conversation to go in certain directions. Keep an eye on the competitive people you know. You can drop in on exercises in the appropriate way at the appropriate time to reroute conversations to the destination you want them headed. Use this time. Stop the exercise and ask for feedback and see if everyone else can see what you are seeing.
- Don’t abandon these exercises. Let your team know that this is going to be a regular thing. If they think this is just a one-off event than that is exactly what you will get from your team. If they know they have to improve their attitude for the long haul you are bound to get more of an honest discussion where you receive more honest feedback and results!
Hope this works out well for your team. We know it did for ours!
From our team at URstore.
