Beyond Team Building

9TEAM BUILDING IN TEMPORARY, CROSS-CULTURAL, AND VIRTUAL TEAMS

Globalization, global corporations, and inter-company partnerships have changed the nature of teamwork for many teams. Indeed, in the twenty-first century more teams are being formed to pursue a short-term goal and an increasing number of teams are comprised of cross-cultural members. Moreover, an increasing percentage of teams are virtual teams that must collaborate across long distances.

Each type of team has its own unique characteristics and set of problems that need to be managed for the team to function effectively. Thus, different approaches to team building are needed, depending on the type of team. In this chapter we will examine how to apply the 5C model to three different types of teams: (1) the temporary team; (2) the cross-cultural team; and (3) the virtual team. For each team we will briefly describe the characteristics of the team, show how the 5C model applies to that particular type of team, and most importantly, discuss the kinds of team-building activities and interventions that we have found to have the most impact in improving team performance.

Managing the Temporary Team

The use of temporary teams, often called ad hoc committees, task forces, or project teams, is common in most organizations. At Cisco Systems they use the term blast team for this type of team. This collection of people must come together and in a relatively short time (usually from six weeks to a year) come up with a work ...