A pleasant working atmosphere, respectful cooperation and a motivating "we" feeling - that makes for the perfect working environment. Working in a team offers countless great advantages, but is also a challenge. Teambuilding measures are needed to ensure that cooperation runs smoothly and everyone can benefit from it.
But wait, what exactly is team building anyway? How does it work and what makes a good team? We get to the bottom of it.
Team building is about strengthening interpersonal relationships within a group through various measures. In this way, the Satisfaction of the team members at the workplace, because the feel-good factor increases. This in turn has a positive effect on job performance, so employees and managers alike benefit from teambuilding measures.
You don't grow into a good team overnight. Team building is a process that takes time and goes through various phases. Bruce Tuckman, a U.S. psychologist, has developed a 5-phase model in this regard. In this country, it is also known as the "team clock". Let's now take a look at what it's all about together.
In the orientation phase, all team members come together for the first time and get to know each other. This is where you can see who gets along great right from the start and who might need a little more time to warm up to the others. The main thing in this phase is to first get to know each other and find out who ticks what.
Slowly, all participants have found their role in the team. Either they have chosen it themselves, full of drive, or they have slipped into it. All team members are now constantly weighing up what is more important: their own interests or those of the group. The first disagreements arise and conflicts arise. Power struggles are also not uncommon.
At this stage, many teams fall apart if they do not make an effort to maintain cohesion. Here, the responsibility lies primarily with the Team leader. He is the one who provides guidance and should always be on the lookout for consensus.
Now all team members have woven their own interests into the common goal or perhaps even subordinated them. There is now a solid basis on which everyone can build. Certain rules prevail, thanks to which the team can cooperate well with each other without incessant disagreements and conflicts.
Everyone knows exactly what they have to do and how they can best help achieve the common goal. At this stage, the team is well on its way to becoming an excellent functioning unit. The team leader supports all this by strengthening the self-esteem of each group member and motivating the team.
Few teams reach this stage, but once they do, success is almost guaranteed. The team building itself is already complete at this stage and real added value can finally emerge. If you now compare the work in the team with the sum of the work that everyone does individually, the team result is significantly higher.
The teambuilding measures were therefore a complete success and all members are perfectly attuned to each other. The entire energy of everyone involved flows into the group and the team leader is rarely called upon. He only intervenes when the team loses itself in its enthusiasm and threatens to take over.
This final phase marks not only the end of the team building, but also the conclusion of the joint work. The group project is now finished and everyone has mastered their tasks with flying colors. However, this phase can also occur significantly too early, namely before the project is finished. Often this happens completely unexpectedly, for example because a conflict arises that seems insurmountable, the budget is no longer sufficient to continue working, or because the necessary expertise is ultimately lacking.
Everything works much better as a team - or so you would think. A group of employees is by no means a team that masters all hurdles together. Working together is becoming increasingly important because it brings countless advantages.
This makes it all the more important for managers to take a close look at this issue and strive to implement measures that strengthen group cohesion. But what are the concrete benefits of this, you ask? We have compiled a few examples for you.
Imagine if you could work with your friends every day. That would make it feel a lot less like work, wouldn't it? You'd be in a good mood, you'd be able to cope with stress much better and you'd be more productive, because the friendly working atmosphere would motivate you. Teambuilding measures can be used to make this a reality.
Teambuilding activities not only help you get along well with each other, but also help you better understand each other's ways of doing things. You know exactly where the strengths and weaknesses of colleagues and can thus work together even more effectively.
Even though your team performance counts at the end of the day, it's still motivating to see how hard the others are working. In groups, a small competition automatically arises, for example, who had the best and most creative idea today. This is not a hindrance at all, in fact it's a good thing, because it promotes your Productivity!
Imagine you were on a sports team. Even before an important game, you would be looking forward to the victory and the great feeling afterwards when the success is celebrated. This motivates you immensely, and that's exactly what teambuilding measures are aimed at.
We all tend to be significantly more creative in the midst of people we like. Our minds can wander quite freely and we dare to just say ideas out loud, even if they're not perfect. That's exactly why it's so important that you grow together into a real team, where everyone feels comfortable and safe.
In a team, a wide variety of people with different character traits come together. Misunderstandings and conflicts can quickly arise. But if you take the time for intensive team building, you have the chance to better understand the idiosyncrasies of the others and can thus avoid unnecessary quarrels.
The term "corporate culture" encompasses all the values, goals and ways of thinking that a company represents. This in turn results in a certain corporate personality and likewise a certain working environment. The question is, do you fit in or not? With the help of team building, it will be much easier for you to integrate and feel comfortable in the company.
A team does not necessarily consist only of members of the same department. Depending on the project, experts from different ranks can also be brought together. This has the advantage of creating connections within the company that might otherwise never have been made. Cross-departmental contacts make many processes much easier, even independently of teamwork.
Working together on a large project can be very exhausting and nerve-racking. It is then important to motivate all those involved again and again and to give them Appreciation to show. Various team building measures consist of joint activities that are simply meant to be fun. Team members can look forward to this and draw new strength from it. Productivity thus always remains at a high level.
Teambuilding offers you countless possibilities. There are numerous measures that you can use to form a group of people into a real team. We've put together five creative ideas for you to make it happen.
No, this is not about real dating, of course. The goal is simply for you and your team members to get to know each other better, and speed dating is a great way to do that. You sit down at a table in pairs and then have 60 seconds to exchange information. When the time is up, you swap partners. This way you don't get to know each other intensively, but you break the ice.
A humorous start is always the best, isn't it? For the "Fun Fact Guessing", each team member writes down a funny anecdote and the slips of paper are then placed in a bowl without names. Everyone then draws a piece of paper, tells the story, and everyone guesses together who it happened to.
Not only love goes through the stomach, but also friendly feelings. After all, everyone is up for some delicious food. At joint cooking evenings, the entire team comes together and prepares a dish that everyone has agreed on in advance. Not only is it fun, but it's also great preparation for the work you'll be doing together.
In the Escape Room, ambition, a quick grasp and good teamwork are required. This also applies to teamwork - a visit to an Escape Room is a perfect team-building measure. Solving the tricky tasks welds together and the sense of achievement at the end unites the team in a very special way.
In the high ropes course, you and your teammates can show how much you are there for each other. Here, mutual support is needed to reach the goal together. This is especially true if a team member suffers from a fear of heights. In the high ropes course you strengthen your Teamwork and prove that you don't leave anyone out in the rain.
Finding your way around a group with a wide variety of personalities is often not that easy. Different character traits, opinions and ideas collide and then it is first of all necessary to ensure harmony. This is exactly what is possible with teambuilding measures. Nothing stands in the way of working together in a pleasant, perhaps even friendly atmosphere in which everyone supports and motivates each other.
