Team building is the process of building a good team out of a bad one. Knowing the difference between a group, a good team and a bad team is essential when building better collective performance, especially as team building with groups can be counterproductive.

Here are some terms that are often used when talking about building better collective performance. But only one of these defines what a team is:

Most of these terms are features of good teams. For example, the expression 'whole > sum' is used when they are working well together. But collective performance sometimes falls short of what you might expect given the quality of individuals.

The Apollo Syndrome is a good example of this - where highly intelligent people often perform worse when working together than 'less able' members. The Apollo Syndrome is just one of sixteen team complexes that can inhibit collective performance.

The important phrase in the above table is "sharing one aim". It is having a shared goal that distinguishes a group from a team, and without understanding and commitment to that goal, all other attempts at building better performance will have limited value. It is therefore of the highest priority to have a firm foundation of:

1. there being a common goal for which everyone has shared responsibility
2. everyone understanding that goal and feeling committed to it

Membership

It is also important to be clear about who the members are. People often look at the organisational structure to provide guidance on who is 'in' and who is 'out'. But consider the example of the sales force in a financial services company, selling pensions. Who contributes to that goal? There are many people:

"Selling pensions" is therefore not something that is limited to the sales force. There are many people who have a role to play. In fact, the whole company is working towards the common goal of selling pensions.

Summary

A team is a group of people who are jointly responsible for achieving a shared goal. If one member fails then it can hinder the achievement of the collective goal. Even if the members fulfil their individual roles but they don't work synergistically, then they may not fulfil their potential or achieve as much as they could.

The most important foundation you can lay, when building better collective performance, is that of common understanding and commitment to the shared goal.

The foundation of good teamwork is having a shared commitment to common objectives. Without this, all other forms of team building will have a limited impact. Therefore, before using any team building exercises and activities, or  looking at relationships in the team, or embarking on other forms of team building, you need to put this foundation of shared commitment in place by:

• Clarifying the team goals
• Building ownership and commitment to those goals across the team
• Identifying any issues which inhibit the team from reaching their goals
• Addressing those issues, removing the inhibitors and thereby enabling the goals to be achieved

Team Building is therefore not just a single event (though events can play a part), nor is it something that can be done by someone outside the team (though outside consultants can help). It is a task primarily for the team manager and the team members themselves.

Four Types of Team Building

Once you have established the basic foundation of shared commitment, the approach you then take to team building depends on the size of the team and the types of issues that may be inhibiting good teamwork.

Individuals
In a project environment, where team composition is continually changing, the emphasis must be on selecting people who are self-starters and developing the skills in individuals to become effective team members very quickly. The 'scale' involved is 1 person, and the team building consultant or trainer is endeavouring to change the skills and abilities of the individual at operating within a team (or within multiple teams).

Small Teams
In teams where membership is static - typically in management teams - the motivational challenge is to align the drive of the disparate individuals around the same goals. There can be many inhibitors to performance - eg: personality, dynamics, processes etc., and how the individuals within the team relate to each other can have a big bearing on team performance. So, if a member leaves, or another joins, the dynamics of the team can be changed greatly and the task of team building has to start again. Here, the scale is small - say, 2 to about 12 - and the main priorities are to build the foundation of collective ownership of team objectives, and then overcome inhibitors through team bonding, facilitation, processes, etc..

Team Islands
A larger scale operates between teams. Where the teams do not relate well, they are called 'team islands'. The motivational challenge is to overcome the problem of "in/out groups" so that people have positive attitudes towards those in other teams. There are often many barriers between teams that inhibit team performance, but not all of them can be removed. The main task, therefore, is the bridging, or relationship, between the teams.

Large Teams
The largest scale is organisational culture change. With the exception of the senior management team, any changes to personnel have limited impact on the corporate culture. The key aim of company-wide team building is to change the behaviours and attitudes prevalent in the organisation, which are almost independent of who actually works there - new recruits who are 'different' often start behaving in accord with the existing culture.

Summary

• A team is a group of people working towards a common goal
• Team building is a process of motivating and enabling the team to achieve that goal
• The stages involved include (a) clarifying the goal, and building ownership across the team and (b) identifying the inhibitors to teamwork and removing or overcoming them, or if they cannot be removed, mitigating their negative effect on the team
• The nature of the team building varies in terms of scale, and what you are trying to achieve: