We need a Team Strategy

This week in class we were talking about virtual teams and to go deeper I want share 10 principals that could be very important and a different point of view of team building

Principals of Virtual Teams (Watkins, 2013)

1. 1.     Get the team together physically early-on this means it improve the trust if it cannot be possible so a told could be skype.
2. 2.     Clarify tasks and processes, not just goals and roles means to simplify the work and use that to measure the performance and if there is necessary adjustments and training needs.
3. 3.     Commit to a communication charter, in my opinion the most important element of a virtual team for this is necessary to create a chapter that specify when a meetings, reports and the channel that will be used.
4. 4.     Leverage the best communication technologies ,means that use a platform that is well used for all of the team members
5. 5.     Build a team with rhythm ,create connections between them ,by constantly meeting so the thing that is normally a problem that each one work by then on, could be reduce.
6. 6.     Agree on a shared language it the biggest barrier so is the first step in my opinion define the language that will be used.
7. 7.     Create a “virtual water cooler” means: not only talk about work, to share social and personal information also help to increase and achieve this difficulty to work in a virtual context.
8. 8.     Clarify and track commitments, use milestones to control the productivity of each member.
9. 9.     Foster shared leadership , means that share the leadership of the team because this increase engagement because you will have members focused and proactive
10. 10.   Don’t forget the 1:1s, it is when the leaders talk individually with each team member to identify their needs and motivation and abilities that always better that working with a group.

Other´s point of view of teams buildings

I was looking for information about team build and I found and opposite side in Forbes an article that I want to share with you from Mike Myatt. He was explaining that team building is not always a consensus is an activity that try to homogenize the understanding (Myatt, 2012) . I want to share a paragraph of him:

“It is one thing to be able to recruit talent, something altogether different to properly deploy individual talent, and quite another thing to have your talent play nicely in collaboration with one another. It is the responsibility of executive leadership to set the tone for great teamwork by putting forth a clearly articulated vision, and then aligning every aspect of strategic and tactical decisioning with said vision. A lack of clarity, obviously flawed business logic, or constantly shifting priorities/positions are the death of many a venture. However chief executives who implement a well thought out and clearly articulated vision, create a sense of stability and a bond of trust among the ranks. This in turn leads to a much focused, coordinated, and ultimately, a very passionate work environment. It is not too difficult to get your crew all oaring together when these characteristics are firmly in place because they now know which direction to row.” (Myatt, 2012)

Personally I am totally in disagree with him but is good to know other side of the topic.

What activities of team building are?

Looking for the answer I found a paper of Rockhurst University Continuing Education Center, that explain many way to do a team building, if you are in a team of leading on this will help a lot because you will be able to implement the activities. The one I like the most is call The Game of Possibilities is a game that use a napkins and the creativity of the team members, the time is between 5 to 6 minutes and it is with small groups and the goal is that each member show a use of a napkin without talking .The objective of this activity is know the other, show that there many way to solve a problem and the creativity that your team have. (Rockhurst University Continuing Education Center, 2008)

References

Myatt, M. (2012). Consensus - Team Building's Silent Killer. http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemyatt/2012/04/19/consensus-team-buildings-silent-killer/.

Watkins, M. (2013). Making Virtual Teams Work: Ten Basic Principles. https://hbr.org/2013/06/making-virtual-teams-work-ten/.

Rockhurst University Continuing Education Center. (2008). 30 Team-Building Games, Activities, and Ideas.