Teams that Play C Squares ®
Produce Better Together
What would you say is the single most important characteristic of a good team?
Trust
Empathy
Initiative
Flexibility
Leadership
Effectiveness
What becomes clear if you look at these characteristics is that most of them are not the hard skills of industry or management expertise; most are attitudes rather than skills. Successful team players are defined by the way they relate to their colleagues, and by the way in which they interact across a broad range of skills bases. In fact, 80% of what makes a good team member is determined by these positive attitudes, and only 20% by the specific job skills they possess.
So why does industry spend around 80% of its training budget on developing often short-lived skills which need updating on a regular basis? For any real value to be gained from team development initiatives, you must be able to get colleagues to recognize a whole range of contributions made by different team members. Only then will they be able to think about how best they can exploit this potential and work effectively together to ensure that everyone plays to their strengths and maximizes the team's efforts, resulting in improving employee performances overall in addition to their quality of production.
One of the best ways of bringing about this recognition and result is to get the team away from the office environment. Putting groups of people together in new, fun, or unusual settings in which they depend on each other's individual strengths and attitudes to work through challenges and problem-solving can have immensely powerful consequences.
The relationships you see in the office are only the tip of the iceberg. To fully appreciate the qualities your colleagues possess, you really do need to take time out and get rid of the 9-to-5 agenda. Far from wasting time, this enables you to develop new ways of working together based on the powerful experience of shared experience.
Colleagues who work together using non-verbal communication learn to trust each other as they tackle a range of tasks, and adapt both to the unfamiliar environment and to their colleagues' needs and abilities.
Team challenges based on even more simple team tasks involving problem-solving and competitive, time-limited challenges will highlight these areas of strength and potential for further development.
Think about the added value that a well-designed event can add to the team-building training you may already have. Make time for C Squares ® just for the fun of it.
