The importance of team building in different contexts "Teamwork" is one of the buzzwords for which the early 1990s will be remembered. It was cited in a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study as one of the three reasons why Japanese car manufacturers out-perform United States companies [1]. Indeed, the Japanese methods of consensus decision making, quality teams, and nemawashi have generated many lessons for Western managers over the last decade. This article examines the effectiveness of an outdoor workshop for building study teams (here called "learning teams") in the MBA programme at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.First, it is important to distinguish the difference between a team and a group. For team members to interact co-operatively, there first must be a network of personal relationships linking them. In groups, there is little such bonding. Effective teams have a clear, worthwhile and challenging mission to which all members are committed. Teams are purpose-driven. Groups lack a common purpose with the result that members work towards different goals, often competing with each other [1]. Effective teams should demonstrate synergy, i.e. the team is greater than the sum of the parts.Different authors prescribe many anecdotal recipes for creating successful teams, and almost as many suggest similar "what-not-to-dos". Steinburg[2] reports on a survey conducted with almost 4,500 teams in more than 500 organizations by Wilson Learning Corporation in the United States. He summarizes a list of organizational barriers to team performance. These barriers occur because:q Most rewards and compensation systems focus on individual, and not team, performance.q Most performance appraisal systems do not even consider team issues. q Information is often not readily available and teams spend valuable time searching for the necessary information.q Senior managers fail to support team endeavours fully. Senior managers fear that staff are not able to handle team management responsibilities.q Many organizational structures foster internal competition, thereby limiting team effectiveness. Team building is also an essential component in the more recent concept of "selfmanaging" or "self-directing" teams [3][4][5]. Salem et al.[3] distinguish self-managing
Two generic uses of workshops are as an educational tool and as a vehicle for the development of corporate strategy. Most workshops commonly available have focused on the former. Examines the effect of an experiential hybrid workshop as a tool for developing corporate strategy and team building. It is hybrid in the sense that both indoor and outdoor activities are used. The results presented indicate statistically significant improvements in team functioning across several important dimensions. While there is more acceptance of the strategy developed, its improvement in quality is difficult to determine in the given time frame.
This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here
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