Paying lip service to the concept of teamwork, while sponsoring team building events in an effort to display a commitment to it, will only increase cynicism and skepticism among those who already have doubts about your organization’s dedication to the principle. Without a culture of team work in place, it’s unlikely that even the most reliable team building events will help.

What it comes down to is leadership: “To lead a team effectively, you must first establish your leadership with each team member. Remember that the most effective team leaders build their relationships of trust and loyalty, rather than fear or the power of their positions.” (UC Berkeley)

Creating a Culture of Teamwork in the Workplace

Further, as the article outlines:

• Consider each employee’s ideas as valuable. Remember that there is no such thing as a stupid idea.
• Be aware of employees’ unspoken feelings. Set an example to team members by being open with employees and sensitive to their moods and feelings.
• Act as a harmonizing influence. Look for chances to mediate and resolve minor disputes; point continually toward the team’s higher goals.
• Be clear when communicating. Be careful to clarify directives.
• Encourage trust and cooperation among employees on your team. Remember that the relationships team members establish among themselves are every bit as important as those you establish with them. As the team begins to take shape, pay close attention to the ways in which team members work together and take steps to improve communication, cooperation, trust, and respect in those relationships.
• Encourage team members to share information. Emphasize the importance of each team member’s contribution and demonstrate how all of their jobs operate together to move the entire team closer to its goal.
• Delegate problem-solving tasks to the team. Let the team work on creative solutions together.
• Facilitate communication. Remember that communication is the single most important factor in successful teamwork. Facilitating communication does not mean holding meetings all the time. Instead it means setting an example by remaining open to suggestions and concerns, by asking questions and offering help, and by doing everything you can to avoid confusion in your own communication.
• Establish team values and goals; evaluate team performance. Be sure to talk with members about the progress they are making toward established goals so that employees get a sense both of their success and of the challenges that lie ahead. Address teamwork in performance standards. Discuss with your team:

• • What do we really care about in performing our job?
  • What does the word success mean to this team?
  • What actions can we take to live up to our stated values?

• Make sure that you have a clear idea of what you need to accomplish; that you know what your standards for success are going to be; that you have established clear time frames; and that team members understand their responsibilities.
• Use consensus. Set objectives, solve problems, and plan for action. While it takes much longer to establish consensus, this method ultimately provides better decisions and greater productivity because it secures every employee’s commitment to all phases of the work.
• Set ground rules for the team. These are the norms that you and the team establish to ensure efficiency and success. They can be simple directives (Team members are to be punctual for meetings) or general guidelines (Every team member has the right to offer ideas and suggestions), but you should make sure that the team creates these ground rules by consensus and commits to them, both as a group and as individuals.
• Establish a method for arriving at a consensus. You may want to conduct open debate about the pros and cons of proposals, or establish research committees to investigate issues and deliver reports.
• Encourage listening and brainstorming. As supervisor, your first priority in creating consensus is to stimulate debate. Remember that employees are often afraid to disagree with one another and that this fear can lead your team to make mediocre decisions. When you encourage debate you inspire creativity and that’s how you’ll spur your team on to better results.
• Establish the parameters of consensus-building sessions. Be sensitive to the frustration that can mount when the team is not achieving consensus. At the outset of your meeting, establish time limits, and work with the team to achieve consensus within those parameters. Watch out for false consensus; if an agreement is struck too quickly, be careful to probe individual team members to discover their real feelings about the proposed solution.

Such a list of team building steps simply cannot be put in place in a single session, or even during a weekend of organized team building events. Such events can, however, be used as the foundation for shifting the culture in your organization toward a more team oriented perspective.

(Learn more about the characteristics of high performing teams and the power of workplace culture in this post.)

Team Building Strategy

Truly, the key to successfully creating a culture of teamwork is using a strategic approach that includes events, training, and coaching. The hope is that traditional team building programs and events can employ content sharing to bring outside information, and positive change, to a team; the assumption being that team members will relate better by becoming aware of new, valuable information in a group setting.

By contrast, team coaching is primarily about facilitating a process of bringing out of participants what is already present. While a small amount of new information may be presented (for example, the introduction of mindfulness techniques), the power and true transformation that comes through coaching is in the process itself.

Such coaching allows teams to collaborate about what exactly they want from themselves and then facilitates a process in which the team decides how it is going to implement steps toward that goal. By the very nature of the coaching process, teams are practicing a skill they may not have used very often but which is vital for high engagement levels: self-management.

The long and short of it is this: If the culture of teamwork is in place, team building events are worth the effort and expense, if not, they are not.

If you are looking for help with training to build a culture of teamwork in your organization, I can help. Click here to schedule your FREE Discovery Call.