Company Culture and Team Building

Project Team Building And Morale

"You have lost your subject when you have lost his inclination; you are to preside over the minds, not the bodies of men. The soul is the essence of a man; and you cannot have the true man against his inclination." -- Sir Walter Raleigh.

Check your project. Does your staff exhibit the characteristics of high morale?

1. You do not encounter small groups of people who scatter furtively when approached.

2. Lateness and absenteeism do not interfere with the organizational program.

3. Better qualified people fill vacant positions.

4. The informal social network quickly absorbs new recruits.

5. Decisions to hire, fire, promote or demote are usually unanimous among those consulted.

6. Dismissals and demotions are rare.

7. Supervisors are well acquainted with their staff and vice versa.

8. The distribution of pay and privileges is taken for granted.

9. Organizational ceremonies are well attended.

10. You are seldom called upon by subordinates to help maintain their authority.

11. Staff who get involved in organizational conflicts are apologetic, not complacent.

12. Both parties welcome you in conflict situations. Yet, morale shouldn?t be confused with happiness. If your organization subscribes to the above-mentioned high morale factors, they accept the goals, obey rules and participate in organizational life. Consider the following morale-building factors?

REWARD AND PUNISHMENT Rewards such as pay, prestige and privileges directly affect morale. The puzzle is to reward the most productive staff, without lowering the morale of others. After all, it?s the employees? conception of justice that determines whether a group?s reward system works. The individual?s expectations determine whether they perceive treatment to be just or unjust. For this reason, consider the following guidelines for creating a just system of reward and punishment:

There must be ample respect for the equality of peer equals. In cases where the equal treatment of equals presents a logistics problem ? as in the case of a limited number of free tickets to the ball game ? the allocation should be made by chance. Lots may be drawn or a decision can be arrived at through rotation.

Avoid paying supervisors less than their subordinates. Such incongruities reduce morale.

Promises made must be promises kept. The wise manager will spell out a promise for promotion in writing or at the very least in front of a witness. The performance of a promise should be as meticulously carried out ? no more and no less than was originally discussed.

Every manager should observe due process. No accusation or claim against an employee should ever be acted upon without hearing the employee?s side of the story, allowing him or her to examine the evidence and to obtain evidence on their own behalf.

AVOID STAFF RATING BLUNDERS Unfortunately, errors in evaluation do occur with disturbing regularity and consequences. Common causes include:

The illusion of consistency ? Individuals who have an unblemished track record one year are automatically assumed to have displayed similar performance the following year.

Masking an individual?s performance ? In teamwork situations, individual contributions become difficult to measure.

Masking of individual performance by intermediate supervisors ? Intermediate supervisors may be driven to inaccurately report the conduct of subordinates for two reasons:

(a) An individual with an outstanding track record may be lost by promotion or transfer, or may steal some of the credit due to the supervisor.

(b) A poorly performing individual may not be accurately reported by his superior for fear of repercussions of inadequate supervision.

Defects of rating systems ? Supervisors tend to give higher ratings to more compliant subordinates. To avoid this bias, encourage the individual?s peers and subordinates to submit performance ratings as well.

Invisible performances ? Most intricate organizational programs include several activities not visible from the top, and some activities only visible to those individuals directly involved in them. Managers should not assume that no news is good news. Solid information should be collected concerning the performance of an activity for which a manager is responsible.

DEVELOP YOUR STAFF

Proper training of recruits encompasses not only the acquisition of specific skills. Also required are new images, social relationships and moral values. The importance of proper training is often overlooked. As a result, recruits leave soon after joining. The manager who wishes to make a dramatic improvement in organizational effectiveness should consider initiating a strong training program. The actual training program should be structured in an unrushed manner in order to gain maximum benefits.

CURTAILING CONFLICT

Organizational conflict leaves scars in more places than solely on those individuals directly involved with the conflict. When conflicts reach the stage of one party trying to destroy the other, it?s too late for the manager to salvage much of anything. If the manager plays the role of judge in a conflict, he or she will probably get little thanks from the winning party, while the losing party will attribute the manager?s decision to bias or stupidity. If a manager works hard at isolating any developing problem before it reaches a conflict stage, success will be easier to attain.

Harry Mingail?s Project Management seminars are interactive and entertaining, and customized to the unique needs of participants.http://www.cmctraining.org/toolkit_pm.asp

MORE ARTICLES:

Team Building Seminars: Why New Teams Struggle
With over 25 years of research and experience, we have observed countless groups struggle with activities in our Team Building Seminars. These groups all had the same common denominators, whether they were strangers or intact work teams, that became apparent during the first activity in which they were asked to work effectively together.

Use This 3 Prong Team Building Power Punch To Explode Those MLM Teams
By Combining 3 Free Online Tools you will learn to Motivate Your Downline. Create a strong Team Identity and Promote Team Work and at the Same Time Explode your Downlines.

Effective Team Building Starts with The Team Approach
The world renown business training organization, CMOE with Dr. Steven Steven Stowell and Stephanie S. Mead announce the release of their new book 'The Team Approach: With Teamwork anything is Possible'. This book focuses on building strong teams and the very real challenges that face them.

Spending Bulimia Swallows 9/11 Survivor with Team Building Solutions at SpeakerServices.com
Dynamic speakers for any event are one click away at SpeakerServices.com. Increase income, end credit card debt, boost health with the latest breakthroughs, create a happy workplace, attract the perfect partner, make more on investments - even reconnect with childhood heroes. Find speakers for free or fee at this cutting-edge site.

Let our team building events help you with your work
Everybody knows that teams work better together if the members get along well, if they know each other well enough to become a team. We can help you and your teams establish a good relationship. Team building is what you need to make your business work. If you take part to our special team building events, everything will change for you and your company. Such activities work on a strong consolidation principle. Collaboration and trust are two necessary key aspects between team members. This is why we offer you the possibility to take part to interactive exercises, team assessments and group discussions. This will contribute to the team building process, which will turn better the overall development of the work done within the parameters of...

Making Team Building Ideas Work the Way They Should
Regardless of the size of an organization, whether it is a small scale industry located in one county or a multi-faceted organization spread across continents, some amount of money will be spent annually implementing and fostering team building strategies in order to achieve a number of desired goals. In most of these organizations, the large amount of money that is spent on such efforts ends up being wasted because little discernable productivity is achieved in the long run. The employees are so used to the inefficacy of such methods that they consider them a waste of time and groan every time that such events are mentioned and they are required to participate in them. So does this mean that team building ideas do not work?

Team Building: A magical practice for the growth of organization
An organization is nothing but amalgamation of people working together to accomplish specific goals. It is an entity that has a distinct purpose and includes people or members who have some type of deliberate structure. Each organization works for distinct purposes and these purposes are typically expressed in terms of goals that the organization endeavors to accomplish. One person working alone cannot be classed as an organization because an organization essentially comprises of people. Working together is very important for any organization to reach its desired goals.

A Team Building Seminar Can Work For Any Business
It amazes me how popular team building seminars have become. Most major companies and organizations have turned to team building professionals at one time or another to get greater results from their employees. But, team building is not just for large companies, it works just as well for the small business entrepreneur. I?d like to focus on a couple of key points that will help you decide, as a big or small business, if team building seminars are right for you.

Team building activities build stronger companies.
Every business needs team building activities to help them to achieve the goals they set for their organization or department.

Effective Team Building for Stronger Teams
TEAM LEADERS WORKSHOPAlice asked Cheshire cat "which road should I take?" (Cheshire cat) "Where do you want to go?" (Alice) "I don't know" (Cheshire cat) well it doesn't matter which road you take.How do you tell a good leader? "By how many people will follow them into battle"What is Coaching?A discussion process between members of an organization aimed at exerting a positive influence in the motivation, performance and awareness of areas for improvement and development of another person to help them be as effective as possibleWhat is transformational Leaders!A literature search of over 200 books and articles confirmed that successful organisations had more innovative and productive teams and team members who were more loyal and committ...

Team Building Work Without Walls
Summary: What if your team regularly had time they could spend together dreaming big dreams and pooling intellectual and intuitive resources (call it a game plan if you will) for the company to take the next step, to stir the sleeping giant, and to take a chance?

Culinary Team Building Sizzles: Culinary Team Building is in Thanks to Hell's Kitchen; Ropes Courses and Paintball are Out
Television programs such as "Iron Chef" and "Hell's Kitchen" are showing how competitive and fun group cooking can be. Preparing a meal takes planning, attentiveness and adaptability. These skills, exhibited daily in restaurants across the country, parallel those that many managers are striving to hone in their corporate environments. Recognizing this, companies such as Atlanta-based Focus on Food (www.focusonfood.com) are designing culinary team building programs for corporations and hosting the events in their restaurant-style kitchen facilities.

Color Me On Releases New Team Building Services - Improves Team Performance while Clarifying Corporate Objectives
Color Me On® Corporation, a leader in providing training and team-building services using color personality assessments, today announced their latest service offering, Color Me On Team Building seminars. These seminars, already proven in many corporate environments, endeavor to improve a team's current performance levels while engaging in the process of clarifying group objectives. This training facilitates developing the skills necessary to achieve team and individual goals, and builds ownership for success across the organization. By utilizing the 4-color PCI Silhouette? assessment as a foundation for both understanding and communication, these workshops focus on recognizing the inhibitors to teamwork and developing the skills to overc...

Team Leadership Expert Christopher Avery, PhD, to Lead Highly Effective Two Day Team Building Workshop
Unique Team Building and Leadership Workshop Intensive Teaches How to Develop Excellent Team Dynamics