Making the Team: A Guide for Managers

Building the Team

Any team, whether it is suffering from declining sales, brainstorming about a new product, attempting to solve a difficult problem, or hiring a new recruit, can be better understood by examining its internal dynamics. It is particularly disturbing, then, that in a 1995 survey distributed to 134 separate project teams in 88 companies in the United States, respondents indicated that “despite positive indications on some of the key team building elements, overall results show companies are generally doing a poor job of team building. Lack of effective rewards, inadequate individual and team performance feedback mechanisms, lack of project management skills, and inadequate individual and team goal-setting are all weak areas” (