We often talk about being a team player, working in teams and having a team spirit; but how grounded is the team culture in the workplace? According to Susan Heathfield, about .com HR guide, belonging to a team in the broadest sense, is a result of feeling part of something larger than yourself. People in every workplace talk about building the team, working as a team and ‘my team’ but few understand how to create the experience of team work or how to develop effective team .
The paradox and perhaps the recurrence of team talk in the workplace may not be unconnected with the fact that most of the projects and activities of the organisations are such that demand cooperation and teamwork for their realisation.
Most leaders have a very good appreciation of the importance of effective teams. Niccolo Machiavelli said, “The first method of estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him”. In developing the leader within you, John Maxwell sums up the importance of a team to organizational performance into two facts. First, “only as we develop a team do we continually succeed. And second, “only as we develop a team do we continually multiply”. Yinka Olugbodi, CEO, Team Building International, the pioneering team building firm in Nigeria puts this succinctly when he said “the power of a team is both incremental and enormous.” It has been predicted by management gurus that the success of corporate entities in the future lies in team effectiveness.

Why teams
Team building is an integral part of organisational development and successful organisations like the Fortune 500 companies are tick on team building. According to experts, the centrality of effective team spirit as one of the key drivers for job satisfaction, motivation, passion and purpose has led to its evolution into a sub genre in human resource management and consultancy.
As said earlier, the workplace itself is team-demanding. You work with fellow members of the organisation to produce results. Even though you have a specific job function and you belong to a specific department, you are unified with other organisation members to accomplish the overall objectives. The bigger picture drives your actions; your function exists to serve the bigger picture. This is the essence of team work.
You need to differentiate this overall sense of teamwork from the task of developing an effective intact team that is formed to accomplish a specific goal. People confuse the two team building objectives. According to experts, this is why so many team building seminars, meetings, retreats and activities are deemed failures by their participants. Leaders failed to define the team they wanted to build. Developing an overall sense of team work is different from building an effective, focused work team when you consider team building approaches.

Task-focused teams
This is the first team referred to above. It is formed to accomplish specific, mostly, time- bound projects. This type of team can be intra or inter-departmental. According to Lars Harrison, team building expert, it is essential to determine why a team is needed for the project. Its purpose, mission, goals, values and strategy should also be stated.
 “Before you begin to assemble a team, you must clearly defined the reason for the team’s existence, the purpose and scope of the team, its mission, goals, values and business strategy. You should also know the requirements that upper management has for the team and for the team’s existence. You may consider writing a business case for the team, where all of the above and some of the other items we discuss below are listed in detail. A copy of this should be given to all team members in significant capacity, and it should be read and signed and filed in the Team Management Plan. If you determine that the contents of it is not required or should not be given out to all members, you should at least continually state these in all team meetings, until they are inculcated in all members”, says Harrison.

Composite teams
This is s strategic and systematic way of developing the team spirit in an entire organisation. This all- involving team which Susan Heathfield, About.com HR guide called a team environment has been variously termed ‘team-based improvement effort’, ‘continuous improvement’, ‘total quality’, ‘lean manufacturing’ or self-directed work teams.

Tips
For successful team building, that creates effective, focused work teams experts like Heathfield and Olugbodi suggest the following
Clear Expectations: Has executive leadership clearly communicated its expectations for the team’s performance and expected outcomes? Do team members understand why the team was created? Is the organization demonstrating constancy of purpose in supporting the team with resources of people, time and money? Does the work of the team receive sufficient emphasis as a priority in terms of the time, discussion, attention and interest directed its way by executive leaders?
Context: Team members should understand why they are participating on the team. They should understand how the strategy of using teams will help the organization attain its communicated business goals.
Commitment: Do team members want to participate on the team? Do team members feel the team mission is important? Are members committed to accomplishing the team mission and expected outcomes? Do team members perceive their service as valuable to the organization and to their own careers?
Competence: The team should comprise of the appropriate people. Members should have the knowledge, skill and capability to address the issues for which the team was formed.
Charter: The team must take its assigned area of responsibility and designed its own mission, vision and strategies to accomplish the mission.
Control: The team should have enough freedom and empowerment to feel the ownership necessary to accomplish its charter and at the same time understand their boundaries.
Bonding: A team must be well bonded for it to be effective. Bonding here refers to the team spirit, the sense of oneness that makes individual subsume their individuality under the team.
Blending: a well blended team is that which knows the strengths and weakness of individual members and assigns role that will compliment these.
Commitment and loyalty: this is central to achieving the team objective.
Vision sharing and reinforcement: to ensure that vision of the organization is achieved, the teams should constantly envision this and reinforce by demonstrating that the big picture is more important than the individual composite entities.

Post script
Successful team building is one of the hallmarks of robust organisational management. Managements of successful organisations are serious about employee involvement, teams, and employee empowerment. The resultant sustained employee buy-in to management vision propels organisational performance.