Participants Gain Reinforcement Into Team Building example essay topic

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Abstract What does team building do for current business? Team building allows corporate leaders to use effective, meaningful, and fun workshops to increase personal and professional growth. Most large corporations research the different organizations that offer team-building programs. Some businesses choose adventure type programs like adventure rafting and kayaking in the Dominican Republic with Franz's aventuras (Hispaniola). Other businesses may choose outdoors adventures from Arizona climbing and adventure school for team building (climbing school). Some pick playing rugby at Wexford Road in Leicester, England (ds. dial).

Most businesses choose team-building programs based on company cost and number of days for workshops. A great deal of businesses in the United States choose "Learn By Design" as their companies team building development and training programs. Learn By Design offer different programs for employers to use in developing team building (learn by design). Managing conflict is an essential skill for any leader, manager, or individual in today's workplace. Many different workshops are offered to provide the opportunity to build management leadership skills by focussing on the skills, concepts, and techniques that enhance the ability to prevent conflicts. It helps to promote a collaborative and creative approach to resolving conflicts and enables people to increase commitment to agreements and satisfaction with outcomes.

These workshops develop understanding conflict attitudes and assumption, generating creative solutions and strengthens relationships, diagnosing conflict situations and making key interventions, dealing with resistance and agreements where there is satisfaction and commitment, and maximizing personal conflict style and conflict style inventory. (destra) Communication is often viewed as the only words we speak. Communication is more than just talking and listening. It is about building team-oriented relationships, marked by cooperation, honesty, accuracy and mutual respect. There are three styles of high impact communication, which helps to control the balance between over-powering and yielding. They are overpowering the desired intention and result of your communication. Creating a win-win communication.

Knowing and stating what you want, how you will know when you get it, when you want it, and what resources you have for getting it. Yielding-giving others a chance to say what they need to say first, identifying, installing and practicing new patterns of communication. Being assertive-the ability to change your output and responses in order to reach desired outcomes. Increase your flexibility toward your ability to establish a successfully rapport, a key to prosperous communication.

It is better to state what you want, rather than what you do not want. People are very success oriented and our accomplishment of outcomes is affected by the clarity of our target. (learningbydesign) One of the most challenging aspects of communication is listening, taking in information and learning how to understand it from the point of view of others. To become a better communicator, you must become a better listener. Everyone wants to see who can get his or her point out first. By stopping and listening to what others have to say without interrupting them can clarify the other persons thoughts and feeling. You will also have the opportunity to say what you think and feel when expressing your thoughts, fears, and anger.

You must think how you are expressing your thoughts, fears, and anger. You need to listen with feeling, empathy and understanding. People want to experience a genuine acceptance of their truth or position. They want be heard, and they want verbal and non-verbal feedback that shows that you were paying complete attention to them. Active listening lets someone know that you received their complete meaning of their message. It empowers you and others to accomplish desired and mutually profitable outcomes. (comet) Most people have encountered some type of experience with working with difficult people.

There are five types of "difficult people" and they all have different effects on others. We all have dealt with a bully, a back-stabber / jabber, a downer, a know-it-all, or a wimp. People are to focus, listen, look at each other and set pre-conceive notions aside. People are reminded to react to ideas not people. They are reminded that it's not appropriate to interrupt, argue with, antagonize, belittle, or to bring discredit on the person speaking. Also not to blame, change the subject, ignore someone's ideas, and assume you know other person motives, or formulate a response while the other person is talking. (pss 162) Every company has a boss.

Whether or not that boss is capable of doing a good job depends on that person' experience and people skills. Taking courses in developing those skills will prove beneficial for the company they are working for. The leader / performance improvement workshop is such a course. The leadership / performance improvement workshop has five courses: 1.

"Coaching for success" 2. "Enhancing process performance" 3. "Meeting by design" 4. "The optimism workout" 5. "Giving informal recognition In "Coaching for success", the participants are taught the two aspects of coaching: problem solving and performance improvement. The length of the course is two days.

The primary targets for this course are managers and supervisors. Since managers and supervisors are considered to be the so-called "leaders" of their workplace, improving their coaching skills will be very beneficial for them. The ability to effectively and efficiently solve problems within the workplace can help to improve the manager to employee relationship, and therefore improve productivity in the company. This course will introduce the participants to a variety of coaching styles and techniques.

However, the primary topics that will be taught are as follows: o The role of the coach" o "Employee growth stages" o "Essential coaching skills" o "Diagnosing problems (employee identified) " o "Confronting performance problems (manager identified) " o "Problem resolution "The role of the coach" will explain what is expected and needed from a coach. They must show the ability to lead with an iron fist, yet be understanding of the feelings from his / her employees. "Employee growth" stages will explain how to handle each employee during times of promotion or demotion. "Essential coaching skills" will highlight the necessary tools needed to be a better coach.

"Diagnosing problems (employee identified) " will explain how to properly handle any problems that arises in the workplace. "Confronting performance problems (manager identified) " will explain how a coach should deal with an employee when that employee is not performing up to par. "Problem resolution" will explain how a coach should handle problems, whether it's an employee or another issue. At the end of this course, the participants will be better prepared as coaches in their respected fields (mw coach. html). The "Enhancing process performance series" course gives the participants a proper foundation in developing a common framework for solving problems and providing any improvements at the workplace. The primary goal for this course is to help the participants achieve success.

Managers and supervisors who are involved in redesigning and improving their work processes would benefit from this course. The length of this course is one day and 36 hours of curriculum. This course will teach the participants how to plan for any changes that may occur at the workplace. The course will also help the participants in becoming better leaders and properly handling their employees. Participants will learn how to plan effective meetings, build team unity, understanding what the customer wants and needs and how to properly evaluate data and solving them.

Managers and supervisors may be called upon to be leaders as well as educators; this course will provide the support they need to be effective in both situations. At the end of this course, the participants will be able to describe why it is important to enhance performance in the workplace and how to gather and implement any useful information that was taken from customers via face-to-face interviews (mw process. html). In the "Meetings by design" course, the participants are taught how to create the proper meeting formats and implementing them. The primary goal for this course is to create the best meeting format that will suit your companies' needs.

The length of this course is one day and two to three hours of individual feedback. Every company is different. So following a standard guideline for meetings may not necessarily work for that company. The managers or supervisors of their companies must investigate and study what meeting format is best suited for their company. This course will help in determining the right meeting format a company needs. The participants will examine group dynamics and critical facilitation skills.

They will also develop ways for enhancing meeting attendees' participation, producing a productive meeting and to manage any concerns with the company. Putting together an effective meeting can save your company money as well as time. It is important that your whole company feels that the meetings are productive and are satisfied with the outcome of these meetings. This includes not only the personnel giving the meeting but the attendees as well. These skills can be invaluable to your companies' performance. At the end of this course, the participants will have a better understanding in how to put together a proper meeting format for their company and how to properly implement them (mw design. html).

In "The optimism workout" course, the participants are taught how to acquire more optimism. The length of this course is five hours. Having optimism helps in alleviating stress and improving productivity: Optimism gives a person a sense of hope, rather than face failure. It is real easy to be pessimistic. It is easier just to quit and not continue with your goals. This course will help the participants overcome their pessimistic attitudes.

It may also help the participants gain even more optimism. Having optimism in the company will help in boosting company morale. Optimism also can help an individual live a longer life. At the end of this course, the participants will be able to identify their level of optimism and pessimism, and know how to utilize a five-step model that can increase their optimism. Using this five-step model, participants can continue to improve their optimism in the workplace as well as in their personal life. Also, the participants will be able to identify their strengths and weaknesses (mwoptim. html).

In the "Giving informal recognition" course, the participants are introduced to the fact that "thank you" isn't enough. Hearing someone tell you "thank you" is great, but sometimes that isn't enough. Especially if you work for a big company and you tend to hear "thank you" almost every day. Hearing that eventually can get annoying or you just don't appreciate it anymore.

This course will stress the points that saying "thank you" is good and necessary, but there are better ways to give recognition. The course will teach the participants in setting guidelines for giving verbal recognition. Thanking a group of employees will be different from thanking an individual employee. The participants will be taught how and when to use the proper verbal recognition. While bonuses and free dinners are usually appreciated they do not necessarily recognize someone at a more personal level. These skills can be valuable throughout an organization: peer to peer, manager to employee or group to group.

At the end of this course, the participants will get a clearer understanding in the proper use of verbal recognition (mw thank. html). Team building workshops has only two courses: "Myers-Briggs type and teams" and "team time sessions". Myers-Briggs type indictor program is used to measure personality types. Myers-Briggs type indicator provides a non-threatening, interesting, and useful method of examining teamwork (mwtpes. htm). The team time sessions are organized into four categories: " team cohesiveness", "team creativity", "interpersonal team interaction building", and "team culture building". The team time sessions are 21 one-half day events.

Team cohesiveness means sticking together but refers to the degree to which a team pulls together. Team cohesiveness is made up of five tasks: "trust booster", "all aboard", "you " re driving me crazy", "give your team a boost", and "take a break". Trust booster allows participants to survey activities designed to explore and strengthen team trust. Participants gain reinforcement into team building by playing highly involves games that improve the level of trust in a group.

All aboard teaches new team members how to be integrated into the team. You " re driving me crazy allows participants to use the Myers-Briggs Type Indicators for interacting, fun, and enlightenment. Give your team a boost is used to reenergize a team through a strutted renewal process. Take break gives team members a chance to take a complete mental and physical break from the stresses of work and show effects of fun (mwmenu. htm). Team creativity means bring into being but refers to a team's ability to generate ideas and solutions. Team creativity is made up of six events: "team boundless creativity", "solution unlimited", "celebrate", "pizza panic", "talking it out" and "I can't believe you did that".

Team boundless creativity allows team members to demonstrate abilities by expanding ideas. This session is designed for promoting and supporting group creativity, and to stimulate ideas and increase imagination. Solution unlimited allows teams to explore possible solution for selected issues. Members will identify barriers to creative solutions and how to remove them.

Each member will take away from this session new tools in removing mental barriers. Celebrate allows the team to be honored. With the focus on deadlines, then setting sights on the next deadline, teams rarely get the opportunity to acknowledge their achievement of milestones. This Team Time session is structured to ensure your team is genuinely honored. (mwmenu. htm) Pizza panic forces the team to run pizza business for one year. The team is responsible for determining the location, marking, quality, and pricing. At the end of this session, the member will prove a quarterly report, which proves the business profits or losses.

Members then conclude this session with a pizza party, as a reward for their hard work. The talking it out session allows the team the opportunity to work out problems amongst themselves. In most situations people like to sat down and talk out their problems. Unfortunately, all too often when we do try to talk it out, one or both of us gets defensive. This session focus on easing communications between team members.

I can't believe you did that session, talks about surprises, amazement, and norms amongst teams. The team will: identify the norms that shape how team members operate, determine which team norms are explicit or implicit, examine any negative implications of teams norms, and decide if there are any norms they want to replace with more effective norms. Interpersonal team interactions building means relating people with a mutual or reciprocal action but refers to the degree in which team members interact. Interpersonal team interaction is made up of five events: "leaps of team thinking", "talking it out", "a team negotiation experience", "styles in conflict", and "from butting heads to shaking hands". The leap of team thinking teaches team decision, actions, and relationship. Talking it out teaches communication skills.

Team negotiation experience challenges team members to accomplish a goal through negotiation. A style in conflict teaches individual members to deal with stress at the work place. Team culture means acts caused by education or training within ones culture but refers to customary beliefs and behaviors that determine outlook and function as a team. Team culture is made up of seven events: "team fitness building", "I can't believe you did that", "layers of team thinking", "head up change is raining down", "make up your mind", "cooperative team competition building", "no we can't-yes we can". Team fitness building assesses team profile by identifying strengths and listing areas that need improvement. I can't believe you did that identifies norms in team operation.

Layers of thinking allow members to examine blocks of learning and show the impact to the team. Heads up change is raining down show relationship to change and examines responses to change. Make up your mind shows team members the decision-making tools members can used. Cooperative team competition building shows that competition is used in workplace to improve productivity.

No we can't-yes we can is the optimism workout. The Optimism Workout researches team member's level of optimism and pessimism. It teaches the five-step model for development of the optimism style (mwmenu. htm). The Train-the-Trainer workshops has three courses: "instructional design", "train-the-trainer: level one", training feedback and "train-the-trainer: level two". Before you start train the trainer's workshop, you should conduct an assessment of the leaders that you plan to send to this workshop (mwtrainer. htm). Instructional design is an introductory program that guides participants through a step-by-step design project.

The course duration is for two days (mw instruct. htm). Train-the-trainer: level one focus on skill practices like managing challenging situations and develop feedback. During level one, each participant will practice managing challenging situations. This workshop trains participants how to use visual aids effectively, how to facilitate group discussion and individual participation, and to deliver training to a multicultural audience.

These workshop topics also include: "Meeting adult learner needs"Teaching vs. facilitation"Using questions to promote learning"prompting, probing, paraphrasing, and acknowledging The course duration is two days (mwtrainer 1. htm). Train-the-trainer: level two focuses on greatest challenge trainers' face. Participants conduct case studies to identify and learn new techniques for managing difficult situations. Participants are required to give an example of their worst and best moments as trainers. The enabling learning objective is for all participants to leave with new ideas, new tools, and a feeling of being re-energized as a trainer. The workshop topics includes: "Examining your thinking as a trainer"A new approach to managing resistance to learning"Handling emotions-your own and participants"Responding in the Moment"Leaps of thinking and their impact" The course length is two days (mwtrainer 2. htm).

The Training the Trainer Program is an effective tool for training your staff within a company to handle the events and problems associated with training and development. Most training the trainer program offer practical hands on approach for specialized programs that work on particular training needs. It can be run on an in-house basis as well as at regional workshops. Some of the areas covered in this type of training would be: 1.

How to Present Training With Impact: This area teaches the Trainer to make the material "come to Life". It also covers Climate setting, selective lecturing, how to increase participation, how to improve discussion role-playing and demonstrations. 2. How to Design Effective Training Programs: Several types of needs analysis are developed to help uncover real training needs in the Trainers organization. These needs are then transferred into learning objectives. This influences and dictates the training methods used.

It helps the trainer to write case studies and evaluate training. These are the strong areas that are concentrated on that follow the ISD model (Instructional Systems Design). 3. Survival Skills For The New Trainer: This area will help the New trainer identify transitional skills, how to build confidence in themselves as well as others. It address approaches to handling difficult learning. There are skill builders used to help develop listening skills and questioning techniques, for effective classroom ability and confidence.

4. How to Manage The Training Function: This area teaches the Trainer How to set goals and objectives for a particular Training function. How to track expenses and get results within a shared budget. Strategies for Organizational and staffing are developed along with how to coach and develop instructors and subject matter experts.

The trainer will also learn how to use trend analysis to demonstrate effectiveness. 5. Make New Employee Orientation A Success: This teaches the trainer how to develop a successful orientation presentation and package that incorporates the 12 proven elements of successful orientation. The orientation skills that are developed cover the areas of gaining supervisory involvement and satisfying safety requirements.

6. Making Training Stick: A systematic Approach to the Transfer of Learning: This corporation of the course uses a nine-part strategy to transfer learning to the organization by increasing instructors skills, involving managers and trainees actively before, during and after the training event addressed. It covers Techniques to develop a manager's feedback and coaching skills with a post performance analysis tool. All of these are covered in a group scenario. It allows for open discussion, immediate feedback, and productive brainstorming. Training the Trainer programs bind people of like professions together to learn, help and feed off of one another's knowledge and experience.

The area of group dynamics in this setting is useful and it provides a strong foundation for all involved as well it is a building block for each individuals work place situation. There are numerous companies on this planet. Some are large and some are small. Regardless of the company size, there is one overriding factor in deciding whether or not a company is successful. That factor is the relationship between management and their employees.

Sure, making or not making money plays a part in a company's success or failure. But, the relationship between management and employees is much more important. If management and the employees work together in a cohesive manner, the company will most likely succeed. So developing a proper environment for your company is crucial.

Group dynamics helps in developing that proper environment. Reference web Learn by Design. 1998. Yarbrough & Associates Incorporated. 19 March 2000. web Learn by Design. 1998.1998.

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