What you should expect from your Team building program ...

Team development trainings have not only become a popular program in the training department, but also as a company?s annual agenda. The power of teamwork is indisputable, consequently for many companies it?s deemed as one of the fundamental values and required skills for the people to have. It?s no wonder HR managers will seek expert help in order to acquire it.

My last article ?Is your Team building training worth the investment?? raises the point of how team development programs may have been trivialized and confused with fun company events ? when in actuality they are 2 parallel but different things.?

I want to talk about how you can make the most out of your team building program, and give you a couple of tips on what to look for in a good program to make your training investment worth while.

?What I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand?

While there are plenty of training methods out there, there?s nothing that teaches us better than our own experience. When something happens to you, you?ll remember the experience and understand the learning much better. Imagine learning to ride a bike by reading the steps off a manual instead of actually trying to ride it. In the same tone, in a team building program that uses Experiential learning method, your team is engaged to go through a relationship building experience first hand by exercising communication, coordination, leadership, followership. Essentially, instead of just learning about building teamwork from a theory, you are actually learning through it from practice.?

While a team building program should be engaging and active,? make sure your teams go home with CHANGE:

1. Change in Paradigm

When a person decides to shift his way of thinking, a change in paradigm is taking place. A good team building program should be able to facilitate awareness of a person, and of himself in the context of community. It acts like a mirror for the team and team members to see how they are, how they work and interact together. They should be able to reflect on the weak and strong points and where they can develop more. In essence, a good team building program is able to empower self-development and self-transformation of each team member from bad to good, from good to better, from better to great. The first step of transformation is for someone to say ?I can change?.??

2. Change in Behavior

A development program is a link between the ?past and future?. People should take away from a training a sense of empowerment and a set of tools to act on it. It?s not enough to know about your weakness if you won?t do anything to improve it, vice versa it?s not enough to know about your strong points if you won?t put them in good use. Awareness that is followed by commitment and action can move mountains, so to speak. In the same light, a good team building program should be able to generate commitment and action of each individual team member as well as the team as a whole. The next step of transformation is for someone to say ?I will change?.

I always say that teamwork is easier said than done, it?s almost like an art in developing and managing people. It takes craftsmanship, commitment and action mixed together to make it go well. If you?re overseeing the cohesiveness of your units and people, I hope you will keep in mind that effective teams start with effective people that have positive relationships with other team members.

Wendy Kusumowidagdo Senior Consultant

Wendy Kusumowidagdo is the Senior Consultant for Outward Bound Indonesia. Her passion is to help people in reaching their best potentials in life. She has coached and trained for various corporations and businesses. A regular contributor to local Indonesian and international management and business publications. She loves the outdoors and is an avid blogger. Follow her twitter @wendykusumow or email her at wendy@outwardboundindo.org

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Source: http://outwardboundindo.wordpress.com/2012/07/18/what-you-should-expect-from-your-team-building-program/

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