Team Building

With the advent of globalization , environments at work has been changing at all levels . These changes demand improvement in performance and underscores the need for innovation and creativity (Egan , 2005 207 . Researchers at East London Business School agree , saying that the increased competition has created the need for creativity and innovation of companies that should no longer rely on what worked in the past (Feurer , et . al , 1996 , Introduction section

Over recent years , more and more companies have been looking to teams to improve the development , dissemination and application of knowledge Creativity

is defined by Feurer and his fellow researchers as the process wherein ideas are generated constantly with the aim for developing opportunities or tackling problems without limiting the company to one specific solution (Feurer , et . al , 1996 , Introduction and Team Creativity sections

With the increasing importance of thinking of out-of-the-box solutions in today 's corporate environments and even in smaller organizations , it is vital that each organization learn how to create , maintain and manage creative and innovative teams . This would delve into the various guidelines on achieving that aim

Dr . Nicholas Coppola writes that team building and productivity needs to correspond to the cycles of growth of each and every team . These stages are informing , formation or discovery , storming , then norming then performing and lastly , adjourning (Coppola , 2008 ,

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Informing and Forming . Coppola states that formal notification of membership is done even before teams are formed . A potential team member is given a vague outline of the mission , as well as who the other potential team members are . Coppola laments that many leaders tend to disregard this stage at their own expense , since a lot of misconceptions arise at this stage , whether about the group , the other members , or its goals . Coppola suggests that leaders and organizations , in this early stage of team building , take into consideration a person 's willingness to be on the team , an evaluation of his skills that he would be putting on the table , and a comparison of similar outcomes obtained from similar projects (Coppola , 2008 ,

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As teams are formed , previous relationships among its team members play a vital role on each member 's initial perception of the team . At this stage , members are looking for an informal leader . Coppola suggests that team member roles , objectives and goals should be clearly outlined (Coppola , 2008 ,

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Storming and Norming . After the initial introductions and after team members get a better feel of their team mates and the group in general comes the storming stage . The storming stage is where members start to compete for leadership . A clear guideline for this stage is to encourage professional discourse by not meddling into the team 's processes . Team members will soon learn to forward group goals rather than personal agendas . At this point , the team enters the norming stage , where roles are clearly delineated within the group and recognized outside of it . This is when informal and appointed leaders start working together...