Team building - Adding value or variety?

Abstract

A case study approach was adopted in order to discover what, if any, are the organisational benefits of team building. Two prominent New Zealand organisations were studied as they undertook innovative activities designed to reflect workplace issues such as problem solving, goal setting and interpersonal relationships. One organisation used team building activities to reinforce the importance of team work, provide opportunities for the participants to better get to know one another, and enhance communication skills. The second organisation used team building activities to support their high performance team programme, which included enhancing communication skills through the use of feedback, developing interpersonal relationships, along with effective problem solving and goal setting.

While the two case study organisations had slightly different objectives, the results show that the activities were particularly effective in developing interpersonal relationships and, to a lesser degree, goal setting and problem solving skills. Responses from both organisations point to the team building activities contributing to an overall sense of belonging to the organisation and participants from both organisations also reported they were more likely to talk positively outside of their workplace about their respective companies. In both case studies, participants felt that the team building activities had had a positive impact on their workplace and that, overall, the inclusion of such activities had been beneficial to their organisations. The participants also reported that the use of creative activities along with an element of competition assisted in engaging the participants and contributed to an overall sense of positiveness. The overall findings support previous research, and suggest that team building can add both value and variety, when used as part of an overall training and development initiative.