Team Building Tips

Ever watched a really brilliant idea meet with resistance and die? Or been involved in the battle of wills created when two people (or two departments) meet head on with their independent agendas? Equally painful perhaps, have you ever sat through one tireless and non-productive meeting after the next? Believe it or not these issues are simply different sides of the same coin. Getting the right people talking together effectively and generating desirable outcomes is what high performance teamwork is all about. And it doesn’t just happen. Think creatively about how to empower teams and reap the rich benefits of people’s collective wisdom.

Warning: The ideas that follow work. Don’t be fooled by their simplicity. For experienced team members and team leaders some of these tips may seem obvious. Sometimes however it is the obvious things we forget about or don’t apply. As you read the list think about your past experiences and determine which of these ideas would have made your team experiences more effective and productive.

There is no shortage of pop-psych books and motivational speakers who'll tell you a thousand-and-one ways to light a fire in Sam's belly. But what do you do when the fire goes out and none of those thousand-and-one ways seem to work any more? What do we really know about motivation?