ANIMÉRA Consulting - Teambuilding

Yes, definitely, but it is much easier said than done, much more difficult to maintain than to establish. These ideals are also confronting many values and norms.

Weisboard: "Teamwork is a contradiction in a society based on the accomplishments of the individual."

This contradiction means that new ideals must be learned. This is accomplished through a process of teambuilding using methods based on collective action and reflection. The goal of this process is increased self esteem through practice of skills, exposure of shortcomings and personal growth, building towards team competence which in turn builds synergy in the organisation.

In other words teambuilding is the tool for management to establish common standards for the team with regard to vision, cooperation and practice.

Blake&Mouton:

'True team action is more like a football situation where division of effort is meshed into a singel coordinated result; where the whole is more, and different than the sum of its individual parts. There is a common sets of signals, based on understanding which dictate action - a division of closely knitted individual activity combined with interdependent effort into an integration of individual and organizational effort."

A good team has task specialisation and division of labour. Each person shoulders a different part of the total jobb with each having 100 percent responsability for success of the whole... Furthermore, it has in common a set of strategies to fit a variety of situations and signals which are well understood and includes:

1. Team action based on synchronized effort of all

2. Pair action, based on meshing of effort between coach-quarterback, quarterback-center, etc

3. Solo effort, i.e. broken field running, pass interception.

'the whole is more, and different than the sum of its individual parts'

'a common set of strategies to fit a variety of situations'

'synchronized effort of all'