There are plenty of nutritionists and health professionals out there that will tell you that too many CARBs are bad for you. But when it comes to the health of your team, we say, the more CARBs the better. But before you break out the bread and the pasta for your team, we better take a look at the CARBs that ARE beneficial for your team.
The CARB Model for Team Building.
- Commitment to the team and each other
- Alignment and goal agreement
- Relationships among team members
- Behaviours and skills
So now I bet your thinking why specifically these things? How are they great for teams in abundance?
Well let’s begin with COMMITMENT. Commitment is a very powerful thing. Without it, teams aren’t as unified or not dedicated to a project, and so they are not as successful. This is because people are busy, they have to juggle lots of tasks and priorities. With only so much focus and energy to give, without a high level of commitment, team members will not be fully participative and work effectively on the team.
There are two parts to this commitment. People must feel a commitment to the team and its purpose, and they must have some commitment to the individuals on the team, believing them and their contributions to the team.
You must remember though, there is a huge difference between being committed to the people on a team and being committed to the work and purpose of the team itself. BOTH ARE REQUIRED! Some of our other CARB elements may aid in the development of commitment, but recognising the importance of commitment itself is an important first step.
Next we have ALIGNMENT AND GOAL AGREEMENT. When looking at this, teams should consider the following:
- Start at the beginning – make sure the goals and strategies are set. The team needs to understand why their work matters and how they can make a positive impact.
- Generate conversation – help individuals and the team develop meaning and purpose. Help them understand how they can create work that matters.
- Get the team’s help – when people have the chance to shape the goals of the team, and when given an opportunity to have input into those decisions, they will have greater agreement goals.
- Provide a connection – teams need someone in leadership ‘above’ them that can provide support and resources – someone who can answer questions and keep them on track.
- Make them accountable – if the alignment is clear and the goals set, then the team needs to be held accountable for results.
It’s easy to see how these steps can help a team succeed. But it’s also much more than that. People want to belong to something that matters; they want things to believe in. But more than helping them to deliver a desired result, this gives them the sense of clarity, meaning and DIRECTION that helps them to overcome any hurdles that come into their path.
Now to think about RELATIONSHIPS among team members.The usual cliche crops up time and time again when it comes to relationships and team building – ‘we need people to get to know each other better. Once we have done that, we will be fine!’ This is a limiting view of teams.
That isn’t to say that the relationships between team members don’t matter, they do. When teams that have good relationships also have plenty of the other CARBS, then team performance can SOAR!
The best designed relationship-focused team building events do more than create laughs, they create learning! These events help people do more than get to know each other, they provide opportunities for teams to:
- Learn each other’s strengths – strong teams not only like each other, they know each other’s strengths
- Find ways to capitalise on those strengths – the best team building activities give people a chance to be themselves, without all the structure and trappings of the work place, helping others see how those strengths can be tapped by the team
- Get comfortable with asking for help – highly effective team members are willing to ask for help, regardless of their role on the team
- Initiation processes – the application of processes that requires teams to agree on norms will have greater success with teams that change membership frequently
- Role definition – team members need to understand where they fit in and what their roles are.
Also, being a successful member of a team requires different BEHAVIOURS AND SKILLS than are required of an individual. While the list of skills and behaviours that support a successful team is long, here is a short list to get you thinking about the types of behaviours and skills to look for when creating a team, or developing an existing team.
- Strong technical skills and competencies – having the subject matter knowledge, industry perspective or specific skills the team needs, is critical
- Ability to trust others – the best team members are willing to start from a position of basic trust in their teammates. this trust can deepen and grow, but the most effective team members are willing to assume the best and work together more effectively from the beginning.
- Comfortable and competent at group problem solving – effective team members know how to work together to solve problems, how to listen to the ideas of others, to ask questions without being condescending and to make sure that the strengths of each team member are taken into account in the problem solving process.
- Willingness to continually learn – for teams to succeed each individual on the team needs to continuously improve their individual skills.
So there you have it, CARBs, CARBs and more CARBs for your team and they will be healthy in no time – and in order to get those CARBs rolling, why not take a look at our selection of intelligent and thought-provoking team activties.