Team Building

The term team building refers to activities by work groups intended to improve their cohesion or effectiveness. Traditionally led by external facilitators, team building usually focuses on improving interpersonal communication, cooperation, and relationships among team members.

One common type of team building, “ropes” courses, calls for members to cooperate in supervised, outdoor activities such as climbing over high walls together with ropes, or crossing rivers on rope suspension bridges. The trainer debriefs the team afterward and leads discussion on opportunities for improving communication and teamwork.

Other team-building activities focus on solidarity and cohesion through mutual, personal acquaintance. Icebreaker exercises, for example, ask individuals to tell about their lives away from work. Exercises based on personality differences, such as those revealed by the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), help team members understand different ways of gathering information, making decisions, and communicating.

Some exercises focus on group processes, such as consensus decision making. Practice exercises like NASA's “Lost on the Moon” call for groups to consider a list of items rescued from a wrecked spaceship and, using consensus, rank them in order of their importance to survival. Trainers help groups learn from their successes and failures in capitalizing on members’ knowledge.

Research evaluating the effectiveness of team building has failed to demonstrate a consistent link with group performance. Some studies found the link, whereas others found no relationship or even a drop in performance. Research on team building has, however, generally found increases in group cohesion and members’ satisfaction.

Because team building focuses on interpersonal skills, managers routinely combine team building with training on task-related or technical skills, such as coordination of specialized roles or role clarification.

Team building exercises are most helpful for new teams and individuals new to teamwork. The exercises can help build skills in group decision-making, conflict resolution, managing individual differences, and basic communication.