TEAM BUILDING - Team Building to Improve Communication

by Miranda Morley, Demand Media

Collaboration is key in 21st century businesses and if you are a business owner with a team that doesn't know how communicate, let alone collaborate, you could find yourself in hot water. Luckily, most business leaders know that team building and communicating is not simple. For this reason, team-building exercises are often used to help workers improve their interpersonal communication skills.

Definition

According to the Business Dictionary, one definition of team building is the "ability to identify and motivate individual employees to form a team that stays together, works together, and achieves together." Managers and small business owners may use team building to improve communication by simplifying the communication process for employees. By dividing employees into teams, managers give employees fewer people with whom they must communicate while simultaneously ensuring they better understand the audiences with whom they communicate. This makes it easy for employees to work together to solve problems and come up with new ideas.

Skills

According to Team Building Resources, members of a team need to work on listening, speaking, writing skills and getting to know each other to improve their communication ability. The website suggests that team members learn how each member best processes information. For example, does one member better understand information that is presented in writing? Does one member need to look at a chart or table when hearing numerical information? The website also recommends continually assessing communication within a team to ensure it is working well and improve it if need be.

Methods

Many employers devote time to team building activities that focus on communication in order to help employees improve their skills. These activities generally consist of games and puzzles that teams must solve through communicating well. For example, one game might involve one-half of a team giving directions while the other half of the team tries to follow the directions while drawing on a board. This tests team members' listening and clear communication skills.

Controversy

According to work happiness expert Alexander Kjerulf, some activities that employers use as team-building activities actually do the opposite. Kjerulf states that a number of these activities are focused on competition, which actually makes employees learn to work against each other instead of with each other. He states that effective team-building activities should encourage everyone to work together toward goals that all can achieve.