Personal Team Relationships There Is a Difference

Personal Team Relationships

There is a difference between team-building and teamwork. The first focuses most on building the group and the second on the processes and functions that make groups successful (Ingram, David, 2011)

In many business settings we often focus on the first and then assume the working together will come naturally. We often assume that having others around is enough to ensure that person interests or agendas don't predominate. But what happens when we cannot focus on the team itself or the building of that team? Then we have to focus on how people work together, including on interpersonal relationships that really determine if the decision-making processes function as we want.

One of the key issues of two people working productively always centers on listening and mutually understanding what each wants, what each hears and what each expects will result. This is how groups or individuals can make progress and get to the point where plans can be made and the details for moving forward can be identified. Goals and objectives are important in team settings but they still need to be understood by the individuals who do the actions necessary to get to those outcomes. This level of results orientation through mutual understanding and communication underlies what happens between individuals just as it does the dynamics of a healthy and productive group process, which is what team-building and growing is all about.

Here is one example of this. Two people were fighting once in a group that was trying to outline our business goals and the steps to get started. The two people just couldn't communicate and seemed to be talking past each other. They were nearly fighting, which hurt the environment for our team. So I tried something to get them hearing each other better.

I let one of them make a statement about what they believed and assumed about the project, and then had the other one summarize what he heard. Neither could interrupt while the other was talking. Then the first person responded by saying she didn't think the summary was correct. She then explained it again, clarifying the mistakes she hear the other person make. The roles were then reversed and the second person explained his perceptions and assumptions and she repeated it. Eventually they came to the point where they agreed on what each heard and thought. And they had little trouble in starting the process of outlining the goals and objectives that our larger team eventually accepted to get the business project moving forward.

In David Ingram's article, What is the difference between team-building and teamwork, the authors shows how the different elements work together. He says, "When recruiting or selecting team members, pay close attention to the personality types and skill sets of candidates. Try to build teams where each member's personal weaknesses are covered by the strengths of other team members."