“There is very little "team" in teamwork without a lot of motivation. We live in a society that seems fascinated with individual accomplishment and almost oblivious to teams. Even in team settings like sports, we single out the All-Stars and the MVP (Most Valuable Player) of each game. That is the environment you have to overcome in order to build your group at work into a team,” according to About.com:  Management blogger F. John Reh.

 

He also says that, “It is not something you can just do quarterly at some off-site function.”

 

Building teams and coaching and developing staff is part of the knowledge set that today’s Human Resources professional are required to have. In The Wisdom of Teams, authors Katzenbach and Smith define a team as a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.

 

Stephen Covey is quoted as saying, “Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success."  Sounds inspiring, but I am not sure if he is commenting on how teams are formed or why.  I guess Stephen has become so sucessful that just about any thing he says is quoted by management scholors, so who am I to argue.

Here at the Workforce Development Center in Indio, you can see signs of team building (literally and figuratively). In route from my cubie to the breakroom and restrooms there are a number of bright green baseball type pennants hung up in individual work spaces which read “Desert Diamondbacks” containing a drawing of an uncoiling snake.

 

The pennants belong to employees of CalWORKs Greater Avenues for Independence (GAIN) which is part of  Riverside County’s Department of Public Social Services. This division assists applicants and recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) to become self-sufficient. Adults who receive cash assistance and are able to work are registered with GAIN when their aid is approved.  

 

The pennants are part of the staff team building exercise the GAIN program is currently using. It also promotes competition among the geographically disbursed work groups, according to Ray Wyatt, a supervisor with GAIN here in Indio. 

The exercise is set up in a baseball team format with 8 teams (work groups). The teams as I understand it, compete against each other one on one for a couple of weeks before going on to the next team, and earn points for finding their clients jobs, additional points if the person is able to stay on the job for a period of time, and further points if they achieve self-sufficiency and no longer need assistance.

 

Ray said the exercise they are using has all the elements of teamwork - communication, goal-setting, planning, cooperation, creativity, task orientation, etc. I asked if program management had started out by using a Team Building consultant. He said,”they hadn’t”, it was just something which grew organically out of the managers’ and supervisors’ shared experience. 

 

If you would like to tryout some team building exercises on your home turf (with your own work group), the hyperlink directs you to a listing of Activities, Initiative Games, and Problem Solving Exercises. Some of these really look fun; there is no reason why you can’t have a good time at work. I think the GAIN people are doing just that, judging from the pride with which the pennants are displayed.  

P.S. Coming together as groups and teams is really a fascinating management subject that has much more depth to it than could be illuminated in just one blog entry. I don’t think many of us can avoid being a party to a group or team in our working careers. 

It would seem much better to have already armed yourself with knowledge about group dynamics, and how successful teams can be built and maintained.  Because, if you do that people will look to you as a leader and that is not a bad spot to be in, no matter where you are in your career.