To succeed in science and technology It's important to have strong individual players. However, "great people don't equal great teams." Though we sometimes forget it, science and technology in the real world are team sports. Team members must also work together at high levels of skill to solve problems, explore opportunities and make decisions.
We have consistently achieved lasting results improving communications and performance in a wide range of scientific, R&D, It and engineering teams: drug development project teams, partnering between pharmaceutical companies and clinical trials CROs, executive strategic teambuilding, engineering projec teams, partnering between IT professionals and users, partnering between statisticians and clinicians, quality audit partnering with stakeholders. With 200+ successful partnering projects a book on the subject -- The Partnering Solution (Career Press, 2005) we have established a strong track record as global partnering experts.
Teambuilding / Partnering Myths, Facts,
Common Practices and Best Practices
Teambuilding Myth 1: Teambuilding should never be needed. If good people are selected, teamwork will follow automatically.
Fact: Teambuilding is necessary because even the most intelligent people don’t communicate as effectively as they perform their individual work. And bottom-line team performance often depends as much or more on team members' sharing of information and work together than on their individual efforts.
Teambuilding Myth 2: Teambuilding can’t accomplish much because people don’t really change.
Fact: Effective teambuilding doesn’t necessarily involve drastic personal change. Teams work more on clarifying group goals, buy-in, alignment and smart processes to ensure ongoing performance.
Teambuilding Myth 3: The goal of teambuilding is to get members to like each other.
Fact: The goal of teambuilding can (and often should ) be more focused on tangible improvements in communications and bottom-line team performance.
Teambuilding Myth 4: The goal of teambuilding is to produce insight and awareness. If team members are aware of the issues, they will take appropriate actions.
Fact: Awareness is necessary but not sufficient. Effective teams also need to work at setting goals, running meetings, clarifying roles and ultimately, improving performance.
Teambuilding Common Practices and Best Practices
In your typical teambuilding exercise, the employees are subjected to a variety of unpleasant situations until they become either a cohesive team or a ring of car jackers.
Scott Adams, The Dilbert Principle
Common Practice: Teambuilding = Paintball. Much teambuilding focuses on simply doing an activity. The goals and outcomes of the activity are unclear.
Best Practice: Paintball and white water rafting can be enjoyable, but effective teambuilding focuses more on outcomes than activities in themselves.
Common Practice: Teambuilding = all action, limited reflection. Much teambuilding does not allow enough time for participants to apply insights from their actions.
Best Practice: Teambuilding involves an equal amount of action and reflection. Most important, teams should discuss What can the group learn from that? And What does the activity tell us about what we should do differently?
Common Practice: Talk = no action. Much teambuilding assumes that discussion of issues and increased awareness in themselves will lead to change and improvement.
Best Practice: Specific action planning. No matter how interesting teambuilding discussions may be, the best predictor of teambuilding success is the specificity of the actions the group plans.
Common Practice: Teambuilding = Retreats. Much teambuilding exclusively uses retreats as the structure for teambuilding work.
Best Practice: One-time retreats can generate useful momentum. However, teambuilding spread over several meetings, with clear assignments and pilot action stesps between, consistently achieves greater lasting results.