[John Loftus of Moody International Consulting & Training shared the following activity at a recent meeting. If you are looking for an exercise which illustrates the power of team performance, give this one a try. -- Rob]
Fill the shoe box with 30 -40 items such as post it notes, paper clips, business cards, pens, etc placed loosely or glued inside the box.
Round 1
Draw the following chart on flip chart or white board on the left-hand side approximately 60 cm (2 feet, give or take) from the top:
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["- Isn't it a long and unending process?" asked a fellow LinkedIn member recently. My response follows.]
Yes in one sense: if the endpoint of the process is supposed to be the “perfect” team or the “perfect” leader, then teambuilding and leadership development never really end. However, it sounds like your client may just want to be able to show real ROI from your intervention. It is realistic for the client to expect, and for you to help them structure real resolution to particular team issues and permanent hardwiring to particular leadership competencies.
To take an analogy from home,
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I recently read another article downplaying the effectiveness of team building. ”You can’t build a team at some retreat,” the thinking goes. ”You either are a team or you aren’t.”
We agree: no intervention can guarantee that a dysfunctional group will become a real team. On the other hand, following our work with teams, we can demonstrate that they make truly significant progress in four of the foundational areas that support great teams:
The question one should ask is “How important is it that my group function as a team …
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This was not the case in a lot of other situations …
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We regularly get calls to assist with “team building.” A manager remembers the fun time that she once had on a challenge course long ago and thinks that this is the ticket for her team. When asked what she hopes to achieve, the sponsor usually responds with something like “I want them to get along better … you know, help each other out.”
She is expecting a four-to-eight hour session on the challenge course to help her team magically pull it together; unfortunately, with this degree of specificity, any intervention with her team is a shot in the dark. The time on the challenge course may produce (temporary) good feelings, but it will fail to get at whatever the root cause(s) may be.
If you’re dealing with a team or department that isn’t working together as you’d like, we recommend two preliminary steps …
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