Team Building Retreats

A case study written by Dr. Gene Benter (who has no connection with Sandstone)

Executive Summary: This case study revolves around the concept of team building that was illustrated in Case 2 incident. Questions number 1 and 2 provides positive outlook about team building. Team building based on this context increases teamwork and productivity. The combining together of people from diverse skills and capabilities build a strong synergy that makes their job fulfilling and satisfying. Questions number 3 and 4 are discussions concerning the development of physically inactive employees and their low performance have negative impact on the company. It also discussed maintaining close contacts of employees in the absence of direct contact with one another.

Introduction

The term team building usually leads to the concept of choices, growth, and combined stimulus of individuals to work as one body in order to achieve the organizational goals. Several activities and group dynamics of team building are lined up in order for employees or the management to pursue the corporate goals through rigorous trainings, such as group self-assessment and group-dynamic games. Mostly, the activities inn team building revolves around the theory and practice of organizational development.
Team building is a continuous process of working together not simply as a workforce but as group of individuals with varying traits and competencies forming together as a powerful strategy to achieve the goals of the company. The compositions of diverse individuals in a team but possessing the common aspiration of the company developed a synergy that catalizes the unity of the group.

An organization is already a team but it be broken down to small unit so that job performance may not be hampered due to job confusion and too general tasks assignments. Building small teams clarifies each person role and contribution to the achievement of the organization goal. In order to strengthen the reach of the group, their camaraderie should be given priority to remove the barriers that hinder their progress as group.

Hence, team working retreats are conducted to build the gap that separates the members of the team from one another. Usually, team building sessions commence with knowing oneself, being oneself, and becoming the best of oneself. Once this is done, the next level is given in order to know the feedbacks from other members of the group. Finally, the exercise evolves to deeper knowledge and understanding of each other in the group. Activities and reflections are intertwined so that the group begins to develop excitement to work with each other. Once the individuals can happily engage with each other to solve a particular problem, the team is born.

Question No. 1

Do you believe that team building activities increase productivity? Why or why not? What other factors might be responsible for increase in profitability following a corporate retreat?

Team building increases the productivity. According to Riyad, “Organizational behavior integrates individual process, group process and organization processes and further these are intergraded to psychology, social science, sociology and other facts. So a team in an organization reacts with all these factors that is why success of an organization always rely on teams. As a result of these we can see teams are formed in organizations to solve management problems as well as to be successful organizations in foreseeable future.” (wiki.answers.com)

Why team building helps more productivity?
Team recognized to be useful to achieve the organization goal. In the team we can found there are different people who have different characters, behavior and skills. This mixing of people makes them to be synergy to achieve the goal.

Multi resources: When we use multi resources and skills help us to increase the productivity.
In make decision: if we depend on one person to take decision we put our self in big risk. But when depend on team there will be desiccations and Cooperation between the members to decrease the risk. In addition, this can help member to improve their skills during the time.
Communication: this cooperation between members (special between the manager and member) and communicate in informal way can make positive felling between them. That help if in the future any problem happens the member will feel comfortable if they want to desiccation this problem with the manager. Also, this makes good relationship happens between organization’ employee which make good effect like increase the productivity.
Work focusing: in team organization each team has own task. They should consider on it. That helps to make more and quality product. For example: IT company.

Question No. 2.

What are some other ways beside those described here to build effective teams and increase teamwork among company employee? How might these alternatives be better or worse than corporate retreats?

There are many ways to improve team work in company. Each kind of team has special way to improve it. But there are common ways. There we will talk some of them and describe how they work.

Clear Expectations: the leader of that team has to have clear idea about expectations for the team’s performance and what expect from the team to do. What they should to do to lead this team and care about finance satiation and time. Each team member has to understand why this team appears? What they should to do to achieve specific goal. And what is every member task.
Context: each member should understand why they participate in this team. They have to know the team purpose, strategy, goals, principles, vision and values. In addition team work should achieve them.
Commitment: Do team members want to participate on the team. Do team member fell the team mission is important. Do they fell they give useful and important service to the company and their future? In addition do they expect they will receive thanks and gratitude from the company?
Team Norms or Relationship Guidelines: team norms are the rules or guidelines which organize the action between team members or any one dell with them outside the team. These rules usually sit in the first team meeting. In addition, these rules can be change or add later if there is any needing.
Using of team norms such as guiding team member behavior and the use of team member interactions.

Question No. 3

What should companies do about employees who lack athletic talent but are still pressured to participate in physical activities with their colleagues? How might poor performance by those with low athletic ability affect their status within the organization?

There are many benefits of physical activities participation especially if it was with teammates. With so many participating in physical activities, either in companies or agency-sponsored programs, it is important to examine the possible benefits of this involvement. The benefits and detriments of physical activities participation have been a topic of debate within the research and policy literature; however, numerous benefits have been identified. For instance, Seefeldt, Ewing, and Walk (1992) have identified the following possible benefits associated with competition:

Learning physical skills. Athletes learn both fundamental motor skills (e.g., running, jumping and hopping) and sport-specific skills (e.g., how to putt a golf ball or shoot a jump shot in basketball) that allow them to stay active.
Appreciation of fitness. Two of the motives for participation identified by children is “to get exercise” and “stay in shape” (Ewing & Seefeldt; 1989); participating in sports offers this benefit.
Sense of belonging. Another strong motive of participation is social interaction. Sports can provide peer interaction through both teammates and healthy competition (see Weiss & Stuntz, 2004 for a review of the literature).
Acquiring sport skills for leisure. Learning the fundamental motor skills through sport can aid in skill development, but can also be transferred to other sports and leisure activities, promoting increased participation and involvement.
In a review of current trends and literature in youth sport, Malina and Cumming (2003) outlined other possible benefits of participation:
Growth and maturation effects
Regular physical activity leading to increased fitness
Self-concept or self-worth effects
Social competence
Moral development

So, physical activities are very useful for employees even if they did not have athletic talent. In addition, physical activities with colleagues Strengthen community and enhance cooperation among them. It also let them know each other closely. The companies should keep encourage their employees to participate these activities even with lack athletic talent.

Poor performance by those with low athletic ability does not affect their status within the organization that much because of their strong relationship. They will help each other to go over it and encourage them to do their best and have high performance. So, low performance is not that big deal. It will make employees help each other and work together to succeed at job. If all employees have high performance in physical activities, every one is going to care about him/her self. And that will create competition among them rather than work together.

Question No. 4

How might you increase teamwork when team members are not often in direct contact with one another? Can you think of any “electronic” team-building exercise?

Generally, more frequent communication is productive, but this should be relative to what is sufficient or necessary for the task. Direct communication happens when people talk to one another rather than relaying information through someone else (e.g., the leader). Open communication means that people feel very comfortable sharing information with one another.

Virtual team recommendations:

Communication is one of the real challenges for virtual teams, and one of the ways virtual teams are most different from face to face teams. Virtual team leaders (and members) must make a conscious effort to keep communication flowing, particularly if teams are geographically dispersed.
With a little creativity, even informal communication is possible in virtual teams – at IBM, employees have informal communication in a virtual space even when they are not in the same geographic location.
The guideline about direct communication might need to be tweaked in virtual teams. Though virtual team members should communicate directly, they might need to keep others informed about the communication. Too often, this ends up taking the form of annoying cc’s in email; we discourage that and recommend the use of a discussion board or a blogging tool to not only communicate directly with others but to also keep others informed.
Virtual teams must also think about how to optimize the amount of time spent on the task with the amount of time spent capturing and documenting information, and that balance point is very different than in a face to face group.

This is an example for electronic team-building exercise. It is US Patent 5762503 – System for use as a team building exercise.

A system for management training a team having a plurality of members,
A system having a plurality of monitors and associated sensors disposed within a space,
Each of the monitors and associated sensors defining a monitor region wherein a respective sensor is triggered in response to the presence of at least one team member in the monitor region
Further defining a plurality of safe areas remote from all of the monitor regions in which no sensor is triggered, each of the monitors and associated sensors including a transmitter that generates a signal in response to triggering of the respective sensor,
The signals being representative of status information, the system comprising: an obstacle course that is negotiated by the members of the team, the course being formed from an arrangement of the predefined monitor regions and configured within the space so that the safe areas wherein no sensor is triggered extend contiguously along the obstacle course remote from all of the monitor regions
Allowing the members of the team to negotiate the course without triggering the sensors by remaining within the contiguous safe areas; a control engine coupled to each transmitter so as to receive the signals from the plurality of monitors and associated sensors in real time, the control engine including means for tabulating the status information;
A scoreboard, operatively connected to the control engine, for displaying the results of the tabulation in real time to the team negotiating the obstacle course; and at least one warning device, operatively connected to the control engine, for providing at least one of auditory and visual feedback information to the team negotiating the obstacle course, wherein the control engine only activates the at least one warning device while at least one team member is within a monitor region so as to assist the team in locating and thereby remaining within the safe areas while negotiating the obstacle course.

The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one warning device comprises an indicator light disposed along the obstacle course, the light being activated by the control engine only while at least one team member is within a monitor region.
The system of claim 2 wherein the at least one warning device further comprises an audio system disposed in proximity to the obstacle course for reproducing a plurality of sounds and each of two or more monitors is associated with a different sound, whereby the control engine only activates the audio system while at least one team member is within a respective monitor region by directing the audio system to reproduce the sound with which the respective monitor is associated.
The system of claim 3 wherein the scoreboard comprises a counter and the control engine adjusts the counter in response to the triggering of a sensor corresponding to the presence of a team member in a respective monitor region.
The system of claim 4 further comprising at least one challenge station disposed along the obstacle course, the at least one challenge station configured to present a task that may be performed by at least one team member and to generate challenge station signals in response to an input by the at least one team member, the control engine coupled to the at least one challenge station and including means for tabulating the challenge station signals.
The system of claim 5 further comprising at least one electro-mechanical hazard operatively disposed along the obstacle course, the at least one electro-mechanical hazard operatively coupled to the control engine and configured to modify the course conditions as commanded by the control engine.
The system of claim 6 wherein the control engine includes a main processor for use in tabulating the status information in accordance with a predetermined scoring equation and a memory associated with the main processor for use in storing the tabulation results.

Conclusion

We have seen the many advantages of team building in developing the organization’s productivity. It only takes initiative on the part of the organization’s management to keep the group moving on to the right direction. Proper training and well defined objectives are the key elements in keeping the team going. Sometimes the path toward perfect performance might be tedious and not so easy but it is always a matter of constant and consistent encouragement that individuals in a team find encouragement.

Working as a team needs expertise. Each person in the team should supplement and compliment each other. Due to individual differences one or two members of the team may be slower than the rest, but the spirit of camaraderie among them will serve as the strength of the entire group. Team members are not competitors rather they are allied forces with each other. The goal might seem impossible to achieve however, the purpose of the team is to make the impossible, possible.

Teamwork communication is an essential trait among members of the team. Communication builds stronger ties and the bonds are knitted tightly. Barriers of communication oftentimes cause misinterpretation that is why; each team member should realize the value of keeping an open mind and a listening heart. Obstacles are never hard for a team who work with one mind and body.

Success is inevitable and can be achieved successively once a team has embraced the spirit of teamwork.

Team building activities such as mountain climbing, cooking contest, and fire walks are ineffective exercises to develop team work because what is at stake in these activities is survival and not camaraderie. Team building should not induce pain or physical suffering simply because they can strengthen the commitment of each member of the team. Torture is never accepted as a moral act even among animals. Giving rigorous and difficult exercises for team building only discourage participants to commit themselves to the firm.

It is good to remember that people join the workforce to earn a living and not to subject themselves to pain and hardships.

References

* Bart Icles, A Great Way To Increase Productivity Is Through Team Building,

http://www.artipot.com/articles/308600/a-great-way-to-increase-productivity… , March 19, 2009

* Clive Morgan, Why Team Building Activities are So Important?, April 2,2009

* Riyad, Why team work is important on an organization,

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_team_work_is_important_on_an_organisation, June3, 2008

* Susan M. Heathfield, Twelve Tips for Team Building: How to Build Successful Work Teams,

http://humanresources.about.com/od/involvementteams/a/twelve_tip_team.htm

* Susan M. Heathfield, How to Build Powerfully Successful Work Teams,

http://humanresources.about.com/od/involvementteams/a/team_one_stop.htm

* Teambuildingbuzz.com ,Why is Team Building Important for my Company Staff?,