Team building crunched by recession?

Since the beginning of the credit crunch, many organisations will have rationalised their structure which may have resulted in reduced team sizes, lost teams or merged teams. In order to re-engage with their people, senior management must create opportunities to “kick start” their businesses after this period of turmoil and establish momentum to get the performance curve pointing back up. A team building event can be effective and appropriate as long as it was objective led with specific outcomes linked to performance back at work.

Corporate events and team building are often regarded as discretionary resulting in an instant “cut” in times of economic hardship. As financial directors wrestle control of budgets back and challenge spending requests, managers will need to justify the team building event with a strong learning and development performance upswing back at work.

Remember that team building takes many forms and shapes. Having a drink at the bar with colleagues after work can be as an effective piece of team building as any. At the end of the day, organisations want to grow and prosper and to this end will have to build their teams.

Bruce Tuckman’s model is still as relevant today as it was in 1965 when he hypothesized that teams go through four building stages of “Forming”, “Storming”, “Norming” and “Performing”. The choice for the organisation is whether to outsource managing the transition between these stages to a specialist or to manage it internally. Each of Tuckman’s stages should warrant some form of team building or team development to help increase the team’s performance and if they don’t the performance curve will flatten.

Herzberg created the Motivation Hygiene theory in 1959, also known as the Two Factor Theory, and this similarly stands the test of time. In it he argues that there are six key factors which influence an employee’s motivation to do a good job and remain loyal to their employer. He breaks these down into three Motivation factors (recognition, challenging work and responsibility) and three Hygiene factors (status, job security and salary). If the employer gets these six motivation and hygiene factors right, they should retain and develop their staff's engagement.

Ultimately, any team building activity has to provide value for money, which can be done by identifying a deliverable and measurable objective. For example, one might ask the participants complete a Team Effectiveness Inventory survey online before the event and then ask them to complete the same TEI three months after the event. This will measure the impact the event has had on the team.

Article Source: http://www.mycontentbuilder.com

Jon Jones has been involved in team building and team development for over 20 years.

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