Team-building can be tricky
Team-building can be tricky. It involves people who are different with different sets of expertise and varied outlooks who still expected to work together. So how can sales, marketing, manufacturing, distribution and IT have a single-minded outlook? There are 3 reasons why most teams do not work as a team
3 reasons why your team-building not working
If the team you’ve put together is not quite working like the team you want, the reasons are simple. There are 3 obvious ones (you may have more!)
- It’s likely each one is doing their best, but in an individual manner and without the big picture in sight
- It’s likely that even with the big picture in sight, they are not sure what brings them together in the first place
- And finally, even if one of the team member is not pulling their weight, the whole team slows down.
Team-building : Varied options
Most organisations (even startups) agonise over the team-building aspect. It does not go unnoticed or unaddressed. Team-building off-sites every six months. Regular team- meetings. Regular mails. Regular processes. And regular what-have-yous. And yet that is not probably working… possibly because it is…well… regular.
Here’s one way to make it work
When team-building can be tricky, there’s one way to make it work. With a workshop with the Lego(R) Serious Play(R) (LSP) Method. The LSP Method is a facilitation technique that helps in team-building by harnessing the collective potential of all those present. The Method works on some intrinsic beliefs:
- Leaders don’t have all the answers. Their success is dependent on hearing all voices.
- People naturally want to contribute, be part of something bigger and take ownership.
- Allowing each member to contribute, be part of something bigger and take ownership
- All too often, teams work sub-optimally, leaving team member knowledge untapped.
- We live in a world, which can best be described as complex and adaptive
Team-building: The Lego Serious Play way
Team-building with the LSP Method means that the team walks out with a way forward, a sense of having created an edifice together built on a collective set of principles by consensus. Since each person has contributed to the process, each one walks out committed to the principles. These hold good no matter what – in good times as well as bad – especially during stressful times.
A sense of a common goal for the future
The LSP Method allows the team to step back and look at the future – its challenges and possibilities. And nothing gives the 30,000 feet view better than the one in 3D. Here take a look at a small landscape that is built by a team.
The landscape brings the delicate organisational connections together, helping the team envisage and foresee tomorrow’s challenges as a team. And be prepared to meet them as a team. And we all know, don’t we, a team that plays together stays together!
So look at team-building in a new way. The Lego Serious Play way. Write to me at vaishakhi@abacusyellow.com if you think this is very much the way you want to build your team and we can talk.
Really clever system putting play to work. I can imagine the participants get it and understand the overview in relation to their part. Particularly like the methodology points above, fairer and more real-world, all party’s views and contributions are included.
Hi Jacqueline,
I think you’ve picked up the crux of this Method: fair and real-world it is. Largely because it believes that people have their own solutions to their challenges and the insights can come only from them. The Lego Serious Play practitioners are mere facilitators who help (with the bricks and the questions) to unearth the untapped knowledge that a person holds! And yes, every one is included and each one contributes. Thank you for your insight!