How to succeed at team-building - Essay Example

Organisational behaviour encompasses many areas including employee engagement, employee motivation, communication, personality development and so on. This paper will review the article “How to succeed at team-building” written by Martin Goodwill (n.d.) using some theories and concepts in the area of organisational behaviour. Literature review As the title indicates, the given article specifically focuses on the aspect team building. Team building is a management approach whereby employees are considered as interdependent team members instead of individual workers.

As scholars point out, team building encompasses a wide range of activities ranging from simple bonding exercises to multi-day retreat programmes designed for improving the overall performance of the team, and ultimately the organisation. In a business context, the process of team building falls under the framework of organisational development. Majority of the organisations shape their day to day operations in a way team building is enhanced. A strong and efficient leadership is necessary to improve the team dynamics.

The article writer strongly says that employee engagement is an integral part of successful team building. . Tuckman’s model The “forming, storming, norming, and performing” model of group development was developed by Bruce W. Tuckman in 1965 based on his 50 studies of group behaviour. Tuckman argues that all these stages of group development are essential for any team to address problems, deliver desired results, and to grow further. The Tuckman’s model is particularly concerned with the way individuals would behave when they work together in a group for the first time or when they are assigned with a challenging task like diversity training.

This model is greatly helpful for team members to get a clear view of the group dynamics while working in professional contexts. It is also useful for group leaders to monitor their groups’ development when their group members are resistant to change. Forming is the first stage of team building and is initiated for the completion of a particular task; and during this initial stage, team members pay specific attention on team organisation, work schedules, and meetings (Clements & Jones 2008).

They try to collect information about each other and to avoid serious feelings for ensuring smooth flow of the team building process. At this level, individuals’ behaviour may be influenced by their aspiration to be accepted by others (ibid). This is what Goodwill call ‘employee engagement’ in his article. Since team members are extremely focused on themselves at the forming stage, proper employee engagement would bring desired outcomes. In the second stage (storming), the group discusses matter like how individual members can work independently and together to solve various issues and what leadership model they are about to follow.

Referring to Goodwill’s views, a leader has an important role to play in