In order to survive in the increasing demands of the workloads that our management offers, we need to keep ourselves from worrying a lot and be more focused on what are the effective ways of building confidence in a team. Team building involves goal setting and a game plan. A virtual organization must always begin a strategy plan with the goal. You cannot hit a target that you don't have your eyes clearly set upon. So setting goals is where the productivity begins. When you have a goal, you can then immediately proceed to the next step of team building. The contemporary management scene also requires that team building strategies should include the understanding of virtual organization and community. Virtual organizations are built so that logistical, personnel and critical resource issues can be addressed. The use of telecommunication and other computing technologies have become the defining ground of any virtual organization. Taking this into consideration is a must in any management and team building initiative. Virtual organization team building should also become more competent in the development and the creation of a strong team that is highly flexible, honest, inspirational and innovative. The innovative techniques to be used in building the qualities of a team results in developing, an energizing, highly efficient and inspiring organization. A good way also to build a team in a virtual organization is the kind of motivation the team builder must create. Motivational talks, tools and strategies are designed to let the team members embrace the leadership role and to help them realize their goals and worth in the changing course of time. Another strategy is to revitalize your team and organization through off-site retreats for one to two days. It really helps to be with nature as you work to amp up the process of company revitalization. The renewal of advocacy vows should be integrated with the aim of providing easy ways of handling responsibilities. The need for innovation should also be integrated in the team building process. The need for a change is very significant in today's defining moment. A change in the team members' values and attitude towards work is also suggested as a major strategy for success. Don't lose heart. Persist in developing your team. Team building can be a very exciting job when the participants are willing to be changed for the better. Source: EzineArticles

Related articles

• The Four Keys To Success With Virtual Teams (forbes.com)
• Making Change Happen: Smart Team Building: California Digital Library (cdlib.org)

If you and your teammates are experiencing communication problems, I have one question for you. How much of your communication is happening via email? When the problems are many, the percentage is usually high. This is because email is missing some key information that helps us understand the message, namely body language and vocal qualities. In research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, a study found that email recipients only correctly interpreted an email's tone 50% of the time. The study also found that people believed they got it right 90% of the time. You can image the problems this can lead to on a team that communicates primarily through email. Most teams would benefit from using less email and having more telephone and face-to-face conversations. But let's face it. Email is great because I can fire off a message whenever it's convenient for me and not have to be present if there's an unpleasant reaction. If you are going to use it, then I recommend the following tips. My guess is that everyone has at least a couple of these they could improve upon.

• Get their attention with an appropriate (honest and interesting) subject line. Don't trick them by overdoing it.
• Keep it short and to the point. People are busy and won't read your email if it looks too long.
• Pay attention to spelling, grammar and punctuation. Make it easy to read, unless you want to send the message that you are either uneducated or don't care.
• Make it personal, using proper salutations and sign-offs.
• Use the right level of formality. This is dependent upon the relationship you have with the intended recipient. Choose the wrong level, and you risk offending.
• Send it only to the person or people who need to receive it.
• Assume your email will be forwarded, especially to people you don't want to see it.
• Don't try to convey humor, sarcasm, or other complex ideas. It just doesn't come through very well.

Effective communication is critical to a team's success. Make email effectiveness one key part of your overall team development strategy. Source: EzineArticles

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• When Emails Are Taboo (psychologytoday.com)

[caption id="attachment_600" align="alignleft" width="448" caption="Photo Credit: mikaylasway.com"] [/caption] If you are a leader you will be leading at least one and in reality probably multiple teams. Building a successful team is a challenge but there are some simple things that you can do to greatly enhance the likelihood of success. Be clear on the results If you are to have any chance of building a successful team you need to start by getting clear about the outcome or result that is to be achieved. The result needs to be specific and written in a language that will be understood by everyone. Remember that vague specification of results is likely to lead to okay but less than optimal outcomes. Be clear about the skills you need A successful team needs to have the right blend of skills to deliver the results. A soccer team for example needs the right mix of defensive, attacking and creative players. A business team is no different. Get clear on the essential skills to deliver the results you want. Be clear about the attributes that are needed Skills are important but they are only part of what helps you achieve results. Attributes or interpersonal qualities are just as important. They include areas like motivation, influencing, relationship building, personal drive and resilience to name just a few. Make sure that you don't lose sight of having the right attributes when building your team. Bring out the best in everyone It's all too easy to pigeon hole people or make up what they can or cannot do based on their job title. You know the kind of things that people say day in day out like marketing are the only creative folks, accountants won't take any risks, quality assurance get in the way, human resources are too rules based to name just a few. Make a point of finding out what people can bring to the table rather than just guessing what they can or cannot do. Recognize that it takes time No team ever leaps immediately from forming to performing. They go through a series of stages where they move forward, move back, work together, have conflict and hit obstacles. Accept this and see it as a short term setback for a bigger long term gain. Bottom Line - Teams can deliver great results. So what do you need to do differently as a leader to get more success from teams? Source: EzineArticles

Think about your team, what are the types of people on your team? Have you ever wondered why some teams are so quick to work together and others are not? The ultimate understanding is the chemistry. When the chemistry is right teams work. In the event your team is not jelling follow these six quick tips 1. Share responsibility among all team members. This is one of the easiest ways to get the team to develop mutual accountability. If team members know they must count on each other then each member does not want to be the one to let the team down. 2. Get everyone to know each person's strengths and weakness. This will aid in getting everyone to build on each other. We cannot all share the same strength so when Sharon's strength can assist Bob's weakness, it creates a win-win for the team. 3. Team as well as member role understanding. Too often team members do not understand how what they are doing plays vision of the organization. This is critical on an individual basis as well as having the team know what the entire team does for the benefit of the whole organization. 4. Encourage members to praise each other. Like Canadian Geese that honk along their flight it is important for team members to motivate and encourage each other. One of the largest misconceptions in business today is that motivation must come from management. Motivation must come from within and each member can play a part in increasing others' desires to improve and self motivate. 5. Get everyone to know something on a personal level about each other. This one is a little sticky with some employees because they feel they are there to work and not to socialize. While on the surface this is 100% correct - it has been shown that when employees know something about each other they can more easily empathize and help the team to grow stronger. Key factor here - do not force the issue with someone who absolutely does not want to share. Give them time to come around or if they do not they may naturally see they are not a good fit for this team and may leave of their own accord. 6. Encourage open communication up the chain of command. When employees feel 100% comfortable in coming to the team leader about issues, then the team grows significantly. Be careful not to talk outside of class here. One of the best tools can easily become a deadly one if the leader shares personal information. The critical part here is to make sure the entire team recognizes this and follows suit. Everyone needs to remember, you can do one of three things when you talk with an employee or co-worker. Source: EzineArticles

[caption id="attachment_328" align="alignleft" width="336" caption="Image via Lumaxart"] [/caption] Team building skills are critical for your effectiveness as a manager or entrepreneur. And even if you are not in a management or leadership role yet, better understanding of team work can make you a more effective employee and give you an extra edge in your corporate office. A team building success is when your team can accomplish something much bigger and work more effectively than a group of the same individuals working on their own. You have a strong synergy of individual contributions. But there are two critical factors in building a high performance team. The first factor in team effectiveness is the diversity of skills and personalities. When people use their strengths in full, but can compensate for each other's weaknesses. When different personality types balance and complement each other. The other critical element of team work success is that all the team efforts are directed towards the same clear goals, the team goals. This relies heavily on good communication in the team and the harmony in member relationships. In real life, team work success rarely happens by itself, without focused team building efforts and activities. There is simply too much space for problems. For example, different personalities, instead of complementing and balancing each other, may build up conflicts. Or even worse, some people with similar personalities may start fighting for authority and dominance in certain areas of expertise. Even if the team goals are clear and accepted by everyone, there may be no team commitment to the group goals or no consensus on the means of achieving those goals: individuals in the team just follow their personal opinions and move in conflicting directions. There may be a lack of trust and openness that blocks the critical communication and leads to loss of coordination in the individual efforts. And on and on. This is why every team needs a good leader who is able to deal with all such team work issues. Here are some additional team building ideas, techniques, and tips you can try when managing teams in your situation.

• Make sure that the team goals are totally clear and completely understood and accepted by each team member.
• Make sure there is complete clarity in who is responsible for what and avoid overlapping authority. For example, if there is a risk that two team members will be competing for control in certain area, try to divide that area into two distinct parts and give each more complete control in one of those parts, according to those individual's strengths and personal inclinations.
• Build trust with your team members by spending one-on-one time in an atmosphere of honesty and openness. Be loyal to your employees, if you expect the same.
• Allow your office team members build trust and openness between each other in team building activities and events. Give them some opportunities of extra social time with each other in an atmosphere that encourages open communication. For example in a group lunch on Friday. Though be careful with those corporate team building activities or events in which socializing competes too much with someone's family time.
• For issues that rely heavily on the team consensus and commitment, try to involve the whole team in the decision making process. For example, via group goal setting or group sessions with collective discussions of possible decision options or solution ideas. What you want to achieve here is that each team member feels his or her ownership in the final decision, solution, or idea. And the more he or she feels this way, the more likely he or she is to agree with and commit to the decided line of action, the more you build team commitment to the goals and decisions.
• When managing teams, make sure there are no blocked lines of communications and you and your people are kept fully informed.
• Even when your team is spread over different locations, you can still maintain effective team communication. Just do your meetings online and slash your travel costs.
• Be careful with interpersonal issues. Recognize them early and deal with them in full.
• Don't miss opportunities to empower your employees. Say thank you or show appreciation of an individual team player's work.
• Don't limit yourself to negative feedback. Be fare. Whenever there is an opportunity, give positive feedback as well.

Finally, though team work and team building can offer many challenges, the pay off from a high performance team is well worth it. Source: Time Management Guide