2.2.4. Team Building
Teams and work groups are basic units of organization and source of creating
synergies for high performance (French & Bell Jr., 2004). Team learning is all for the
purpose of alignment. At this stage, alignment may be defined as “the articulation of
actions, skills, behavior (mental) and performances to a level that the task flows through
the team members such that the friction at the joints is least felt” (French & Bell Jr.,
2004).
French and Bell Jr. (2004) are of the opinion that “for an individual to function
effectively, a prerequisite is that a team functions effectively”. Individuals in a team do
not perform independent of each other. Wendell (2000) defines objectives of team
building as an intervention helping to perform teams efficiently and effectively and at the
same time satisfy individuals’ needs. The actions and skills of one team member should
match and fit with that of the other. The fact is that the proficiency and performance level
of the team members should also be at the same standard. This has been explained by
Stewart as “Improving the performance of individual team members is achieved by
coaching their individual contribution to the team effort as if it were individual efforts”.
(1998). Raheem (1995) is of the opinion that:
Learning organizations foster an environment wherein people can "create
the results they truly desire," and where they can learn to learn together for
the betterment of the whole.It is very rare for team members to be at the same proficiency level due to
difference in their specialty and at the same time their attitude may not fit with each
other. Team learning is therefore required for high team performance. No matter how
professional the members are teams need to be coordinated before they take up a task.
A competitive learning organization can be described as a continuously adaptive
enterprise that promotes focused individual, team and organizational learning.
(Miller, Lau, Levy & Tan, 1994)