Team Building

What is a Team?

There are many ways of defining teams:

‘A group of people in concerted action’ (First recorded use in this sense from the 16^th Century)

– The Oxford Concise Dictionary of English Etymology, 1996, Oxford University Press

‘A group of people organized to work together’

–      Collins English Dictionary, 2006, HarperCollins Publishers

In addition, the term initially comes from an old English meaning: a set of Draught Animals (animals that are used in farming e.g. for ploughing fields).

Dealing with People you don’t get on with

Dealing with people that you don’t get on with can be a challenging thing, especially when you have to work with that person on a daily basis. The way that you deal with the situation can have a big impact on your ability to work effectively in a team.

Key points to remember and tips:

• Remember that people take on different roles within a team, and these roles affect the way that they respond to something. – It may not be the person that is the issue; it may be the role they have to take to do their job. 

• Is the person who you are dealing with acting in the way they are because of prior experiences that they have had? – If they are, you may be able to change they way that you work together through discussion or simply by showing that things have changed or that the prior experience was incorrect. 

• Do you and the person fully understand the other pressures that you each have, as this can lead to bad feeling? – If they are, you may be able to improve the situation by clarifying the pressures you face and asking the person to discuss theirs.

• Concentrate on the work, not on personal feelings when discussing things with this person.  There are occasions when people just don’t get on, try to remain friendly and focus on the job at hand.  Things may become easier as time goes on, and it takes far less energy to do this than working up feelings of anger and bad will towards someone. 

• What does the other person value? Understanding this may allow you to understand the person a little better. 

• Discuss the issue with your reporting manager and ask for their help and advice about how to resolve it.

What Do I Value?

How can what you value have importance within the team in which you are working?

Different people come to work for different reasons and take pride, comfort and joy from differing things based upon their personality and many other factors.  

An awareness of the things that matter to you and that you value can be very useful when shared with others, as it can raise their ability to communicate with you effectively, as they are aware of those things that drive you and, can be sure to support them moving forward. 

For example, if a person values being able to always make a contribution, people can ensure that they always ask for that person’s contribution; if you value purpose, then they may be able to gain your support for things by ensuring you know how what they are working on affects that commitment to purpose.

Minimising Conflict

You can minimise conflict between individuals operating in different team roles by:

• Identifying the people who are most likely to come into conflict and assigning those people to different working parties or sub-groups
• Ensuring that you have a Team Worker or Co-ordinator available to keep the peace on the team
• Filling as many of the team roles as possible, so that there is a group spread of types and capabilities
• Allocating the right kind of tasks to each team role

The Perfect Team?

In an ideal world, according to Belbin, a perfect team would consist of at least eight people, each of whom would be comfortable operating in one of the eight team roles. The perfect mix is highly unlikely. In fact, you are much more likely to find teams composed of highly unsatisfactory combinations, such as:

• Three Shapers and one Plant
• Two Monitor Evaluators, two Completers and one Team Worker
• Four Resource Investigators and one Monitor Evaluator
• Three Plants and one Implementer

Sometimes teams are brought together by circumstance or practicality rather than the best practice. If you are given a team of people, then you simply have to work with the individuals and seek to make the best of what you have got.

If you are lucky enough to be able to handpick a team for a specific project, then there are some suggestions as to how you can create a good, if not perfect, mix of people. 

Fresh Learning offers a range of training and support with delivering excellence in Team Building. If you would like to contact send us a message using the contact form on the right-hand side of this post.

Fresh Learning Team

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