Building a Team

When teams form, it is extremely important that they grow together as a team that will be able to fully function as a single working unit with many parts. Team building activities and workshops are normally geared toward helping teams bond and improve their ability to work together to accomplish common goals and tasks.

A couple of years ago I go the unique and wonderful opportunity to be a Virginia state FFA officer. One of the very first things that happen once you are elected to be a state officer is you meet up with the rest of your team and go straight in to BLAST-OFF which is whole week dedicated to team building. As the year progress you go to more and more conferences where you continue to develop as a team, but BLAST-OFF is the first formal training you have.

BLAST OFF is completely dedicated to getting to know your new teammates, coming up with goals and expectations for the year ahead, learning how team process works, and learning how to deal with conflict among other things. That one week is a bonding experience like non other and it is and was so vital to our team because for the first time we got to see each other beyond just the blue jacket. Knowing other teammates personalities and pet peeves really helped form a solid foundation for working through problems later in the year. Without a solid working foundation for your team, things like conflict can easily destroy any progress you make and ultimately lead to team failure. However, having simple team building workshops and trainings can easily help move teams to the next level by improving their social relations.

By no means was our state officer team perfect, but without trainings such as BLAST OFF it would have been nearly impossible for us to accomplish what we did. There were times when we would argue and fight over things like state convention or ways to vote on issues at National Convention, but we were able to work past these differences using our conflict management skills. Some of my best friends are my past teammates and that is largely due to the trust and open communication I was able to foster with them when we were part of a team.

I have been apart of teams that have had team building exercises and teams that did not and I can see a huge difference in those teams I served on that did have that extra training. Something as simple as a workshop or a training can greatly influence a teams ability to work through problems using open communication and conflict management. Without these skills it is easy for a team to fall apart and accomplish little but a little team bonding can fix a lot of potential issues and equip team members with the knowledge and skills necessary to be successful.