Team building strategies and effectiveness in organizations

¶ … Season-Long Team-Building Intervention: Examining the Effect of Team Goal Setting on Cohesion" (2008) by Julie Senecal, Todd M. Loughead and Gordon a. Bloom and "An Analysis on the Effectiveness of Team Building: The Impact on Human Resources" (2012) by WAN Idros Sulaiman, Maizatul Haizan Mahbob and Badrul Redzuan Abu Hassan

Study No.

The purpose of the study by Senecal, Loughead and Bloom (2008) was to evaluate a team-building initiative that used team goal setting to increase perceptions of cohesion. In this context, cohesion refers to the ability of some teams to stick together through trying times and work together towards a common goal. As a result, managers of all types are interested in improving the cohesiveness of their teams based on the ability of these cohesive teams to contribute to improved performance and goal achievement. To their credit, the authors are careful to operationalize their terminology from the outset, and provide definitions for the cohesion, group cohesion, team building, team tenure, playing experience and team performance constructs. Likewise, these researchers provide a review of the relevant juried and scholarly literature concerning these issues to explain that the inputs of role clarity, leadership, and team norms together with environment in which teams compete serve to influence the performance of the team. The authors also made it clear where there were gaps in the existing body of knowledge concerning group cohesion and how their study would help fill this gap.

The authors described their procedure and methodology in detail, including the types of statistical analyses used and the corresponding rationale in support of their use. Based on their analysis of 86 teenage female basketball players divided into eight teams, Senecal and his associates found that the teams that were provided with a three-stage protocol for implementing a team-goal setting program perceived higher levels of group cohesion compared to those that did not receive this team-goal setting program. Taken together, this was a well-conducted study that added to the body of knowledge concerning group cohesion and the efficacy of the three-stage team-building protocol.

Study No. 2

The purpose of the study by Sulaiman, Mahbob and Hassan (2012) was to determine the effectiveness of the function of human resource team building by examining three main factors: (a) task oriented roles factor, (b) relationship oriented roles factor and (c) self oriented roles factor among 150 ancillary staff members at the National University of Malaysia. The authors describe the inextricable relationship between efficient organizations and effective organizational leadership and stress the need for team building to improve relations between management and staff.