Free Team Building Articles

1. POPULAR! Team Motivation - Six factors that influence why we’re part of a team and how stay motivated.

2. Motivating Factors: What Does It Take to Make Employees Give You Their Best? - Compensation and benefits may take a back seat to a company culture that inspires and involves workers.  High-performing teammates are motivated by inspiring missions and visions.

3. POPULAR! Teambuilding Lessons We Can Learn from Geese - 5 Team Building Lessons available from Geese

4. Team Based Incentives - Do They Work? - Includes 5-step example of how to create a compensation plan and make your team more successful.

5. Celebrations and Events to Build the Team - How does a golf tournament or building site open-house build motivation and teamwork? Read to find out!

6. Starving for Recognition - Getting a compliment feels good!  So does giving one.  It's one of the easiest "double wins" in life. In this team building article, read about the importance of recognition and the seven recognition Do's and Don'ts.

7. Team Start Up - The guide for newly formed teams.  The Team Start Up will establish a healthy foundation for the team's work.

8. Accountability a Sticky Subject for Teams - In a team based system, who has responsibility for results? ...the manager? ...the team? Check out this team building article for some great advice.

9. Team Measures: A Report on How Organizations Measure Teams - Do teams measure their performance and, if so, what are they measuring?

10. Brainstorming 101: How to Stretch Your Team's Capacity for Innovation - If your teams need to know the basics of brainstorming, this will help.  Using this  process with your team can result in 50...75...100...150 or more ideas on the wall. It's a powerful process.

11. Personality and the Team: Value the Person - Personality plays a critical role in team building relationships, disagreement, friction, conflict, and ultimately, performance. Learn some of the basics in this excellent team building article.

12. Creating Team Agreements - The ten elements of an effective agreement.  Also, can you recognize the traditional culprit that interferes with the great results you could be getting through team agreements? The critical part of a successful team environment is making sure everyone has the same vision, before moving into action.

13. Appreciative Teambuilding: Creating a Climate for Great Collaboration - Appreciative inquiry's core principles and how they compare with traditional team building approaches; The basic steps in an appreciative team inquiry; Role of shame and pride.

14. How to Make a Decision Without Making a Decision - Dynamic Facilitation yields breakthrough solutions by breaking the normal rules of meeting management. Learn the five requirements for powerful non-decision-making, for discovering big obvious truths within your team or organization.

15. Conflict - A different approach for conflict resolution; because "Argument seldom convinces anyone against his inclination."  The costs of conflict among your team can be direct, productivity, continuity and emotional costs.

16. POPULAR! The 7 Keys to Building Great Workteams  - Team building and fostering teamwork is a top priority for many leaders. To effectively implement teams, leaders need a clear picture of the seven elements high-performance teams have in common.

17. Values and Beliefs as Barriers to Team Consensus - What to do when values cloud the picture?

18. Poor Meetings are Front Page News  Learn tips for successful team meetings.

19. Teams at the Top - New Book Misses the Point -  Little has been written about the behavior of teams at the tops of organizations. If this book was written to reinforce existing behaviors of senior executives, it succeeded.

20. From Manager to Coach - A discussion of what it takes to transition from a traditional managerial role to one of coach in today's “workteam” environment.  Too many organizations have not appreciated the enormity of change within their teams and have attempted to inject involvement and empowerment concepts without properly preparing the leadership.

21. Does Participative Leadership "Dull the Sword"? - An interesting client question led to this article.  Confidence is a welcome ally among your team.

22. When You're in Charge: Tips for Leading Teams.  Teams are serious business in today’s economy as companies realize the value of teaming in creating greater employee involvement, leveraging human resources, fostering innovation, and shoring up the bottom line.

23. Supervisors in Transition - What does empowerment mean for the supervisor, and what becomes the role of a supervisor caught in such a significant transition?  Employee involvement and team building play a central role

24. Starting up a Virtual Team - Members share a common purpose, but are separated by distance, time, and organizational boundaries.  Devoting adequate time and attention to the building blocks that support a virtual team's successful performance can prove an invaluable up-front investment.

25. Employee Involvement...What I Wish I Knew 20 Years Ago (Part I) by Peter Grazier.  If we can just create a team environment that is safe, reassuring, and encourages contribution, more talent will be directed toward the organization.

26. Employee Involvement...What I Wish I Knew 20 Years Ago (Part II) by Peter Grazier.  Team building principles that are critical to actualizing involvement, empowerment, and self-direction in the workplace.

27. Employee Involvement...What I Wish I Knew 20 Years Ago (Part III) by Peter Grazier.  Some of the key learning points that have been pivotal to my understanding and application of employee involvement and teambuilding concepts.

28. Employee Involvement - 10 Years of Learning  The factors that drive behavior in teams, especially those that result in high or low performance.

29. Teams Finding It Tough? Maybe the Culture is Wrong  Team building, collaboration and community are bedrock philosophies of successful teams, so changing work group structure without changing the organization's culture to support these just doesn't work.

30. Overcoming Resistance to Employee Involvement - What would provide a team some motivation to move forward?  If one can understand the dynamics of change within themselves or their team, both personal and organizational, the probability of success will be greatly enhanced.

31. Living with a Self-Directed Work Team - and Why Self-Direction Works: A Review of Herzberg's Concepts.  Can front-line team members really take on many of the tasks previously reserved for management?

32. SDWT's: A Team Effort - The promise of teams isn't achieved without attention to skills and team building.  Teams make many structural and operational decisions that previously were made by line supervisors, including compensation and rewards, scheduling, maintenance, inventory control, data management, training and others.

33. Management Bites Dog Food Factory - A story of management resistance to employee involvement and self-direction.  How teamwork can teach management new tricks.

34. POPULAR! Employee Empowerment and Customer Service - Peter Grazier illustrates the difference true empowerment makes - with a cookie and an orange.  Team building, teamwork, empowerment and happy customers.

35. World’s Quickest Empowerment Tip  - With a little team building, teamwork and empowerment, what would you do?

36. The "Soft" Costs of Empowering Employees  - Team building can improve the “soft” costs in your organization.

37. Collaboration Movement - Alive and Well  - As teams use and experience collaborative practices at work, we will continue to see teamwork and people interacting in new ways.

38. POPULAR! What is Teambuilding Really? - Are you more successful on your own or in a group?  Read to discover the truth. Most people associate team building with the trivial, rah rah aspects of teams in competition.

39. The Toxic Workplace - Why is today's workplace often more hectic than ever?  Is teamwork in your organization changing?  And what are the five most desirable qualities of a workplace? Find the answers to these questions and more.

40. Extreme Team Building - Business Week magazine's first-hand reporting of Seagate's "Morale-athon." (Note: Article is unavailable at this time)

41. The Incredibles - See how the elements of this popular movie mirror our experiences with teams. An incredible analogy and a multi-faceted team building story with heart.

42. Take Your Team on a Quest with Teambuilding Treasure Hunts  Take part in a team building treasure hunt in a city near you.

43. How to Enhance Your Teambuilding Efforts with Portable Ropes Courses  Skilled facilitation following each activity during this team building program is what supports the lessons of teamwork.

44.  POPULAR! Work and Spirituality - We received more responses to this article than any other article written in the 11-year history of EI Network newsletter.  All high performance and teamwork originates from the heart because it begins with the team’s desire to perform.

45. Teaching Team Behaviors Earlier...Much Earlier  - Those of us in the workplace today have been reared in a system that associates teamwork with “play” and individual accomplishment with the “real world” of work.

46. Industry Week Magazine: Teams at Work - Small-company executives tell how team building improves productivity and profits.  For team efforts to be successful, managers must change their behavior.

47. Work in the 21st Century will Recognize Human Potential - The three trends that are gaining momentum and how the resistance to change might impede progress.

48. The Miracle of Pittron Steel -  The secrets to overcoming workplace animosity.  By truly valuing people, which he interprets as demonstrating love, dignity, and respect, a foundation is laid for high-performance and teamwork.

49. POPULAR!  Training with PIZZAZZ! - 20 Key Learning Points to Enhance Presentations and Training.   Learn how to lead and inspire team building programs, training sessions and workshops.

50. The Ability of a System to Right Itself - Use of "Open Space" concept in business. How to get to another level of involvement, where people unite around common issues, develop strategies, and take ownership of their resolution.

51. Economists Studying "Social Capital"  The movement toward team building, collaboration, involvement, empowerment, and teams will continue to gain a wider acceptance.

52. Restructuring...the Right Way - So many organization restructuring projects fail to achieve their potential. Here's an approach built on high-involvement of the workforce.  If each of you direct your talents and abilities toward improving teamwork and the work environment, we will come very close to being the best we can be.

53. Leading with Style - While there are many factors that drive a leader’s success, style plays a key role in effectiveness.  Each of the styles offer benefits to the team and the organization, but not all styles are appropriate in all situations.

54. Sit There, Do Nothing...Are You Kidding Me? - Keys to lowering stress foe yourself and for your team members through meditation.

55. 4 Hats Leaders Wear - Effective leaders know that to truly lead they must wear four distinct hats to promote teamwork.

56. The Power of 360-Degree Feedback - 360-degree feedback can be a powerful tool in generating the feedback that leads to behavioral change and better results in team members.

57.  Executive Coaching - Benefits attributed to the coached executives included improvements in teamwork, leadership skills and time management.

58. E-Learning: Coming to a Computer Near You - If e-learning is going to be effective, organizations must consider the same items that make classroom training effective.

59. The Evolution of Scavenger Hunts to Treasure Hunts - Treasure hunts are very different from scavenger hunts in that the activity requires more than retrieving items on a list. For scavenger hunts, no knowledge of the course area is required as most of the items on the list can be found just about anywhere. Treasure Hunts are a great form of team building for any team.

60.  Bike Building Team Activity is a Perfect Gift For the Holidays - You’ll be overwhelmed by the amount of energy and excitement that takes over the room during this eye-opening team building event, when your team learns that the bikes they just built will be donated to underprivileged kids who then burst into the room. There is not a dry eye in the house.

61. Overusing Strengths Creates Weaknesses - When it comes to using our strengths, too much of a good thing is not a good thing.

62. Who Stole Our Meeting? - If we understand that efficient and effective meetings require preparing and sticking to agendas, starting and ending on time, and keeping minutes, why do meetings go awry?

63. Heroic Leaders Don't Always Save the Day - The Heroic Leader is an individual who sees a crisis and inserts him or herself into the situation regardless of whether or not they are directly responsibility for resolving the issue.

64. Feedback is the Perfect Gift - As we look for gifts for our coworkers, there is one gift that is free, but perhaps the most valuable of all...the gift of feedback. The people around us are constantly doing things that are perfect opportunities for feedback.

65. Organizational Climate Surveys - Successful organizations understand the needs and desires of their employees and they work to create a positive environment where people can thrive. Organizational climate surveys are a powerful tool for identifying organizational strengths and weaknesses.

66.  Leadership by Design - The defining proof of leadership is the ability to obtain followers. It really is that simple - and that difficult. Since most individuals do not follow people easily or blindly, it pays to understand and apply two business concepts and three fundamentals of effective leaders within the small or medium size business environment.

67. Leadership Lessons from US Presidents - Effective leadership is not only essential for leading a country, but also is critical to leading an organization, a department, a team, or a project. Consider what we can learn from some our most recent presidents.

68. Hey, Listen Up! - The most effective communicators recognize that a good part of their success is earned as a result of how well they listen. They have discovered the more they listen the more engaged others become in conversations and problem solving sessions.

69. Overcoming Liabilities in the Job Interview - In most interviews there is typically an elephant in the room. The elephant is very often not brought up spontaneously by the interviewer, yet it can end your candidacy if not addressed.

70. Navigating the 1st Interview Question: Tell Me About Yourself - “Tell me about yourself” is a terrific opportunity to effortlessly articulate the value that you bring to organizations. Practice your answer to this question and your interview will get off to a great start.

71. Out-of-the-Box-Interview - Lean the approach will demonstrate how to gather the best intelligence before that first interview so that you can distinguish yourself from your competition, and win the job.

72. Coaching as a Competency - It is presumed that the professional coach knows more about the subject matter under discussion, than the player. However, the possession of knowledge is the minimum expectation for the coach. Those who thrive in the position have the capability to gain trust, communicate the message, encourage application, provide feedback, and help to improve the player’s performance.

73. The Leadership Assimilation Process and What it Means for Team - The purpose of a Leadership Assimilation process is to make a conscious effort to avoid the all-too-human elements that threaten the development of a trusting team and limit the potential for executives to display their talents. It is a simple learning model that is efficient, engaging, and meaningful for any team with a new leader.

74. Dealing with Cultural Misfits - They’re productive. They meet their goals. They’ve been around for a long time. And, although they don’t model your organizational values, you keep them around. They’re the cultural misfits and most organizations have them.

75. Coaching on the Field & in the Office - Working hard on fundamentals plays out both on the field and in the office and with the right coaches both will be winning situations.

76. Time for Coaching - Coaching staff members is an essential skill for any team member, but most managers don't take the time...why?

77.  Team Building? 12 Questions to Help you Make the Right Decision - There’s no such thing as “the perfect team.” But, wouldn’t it be great if you could help your team on their journey? Learn the right questions to make the right decision about team building.

78. The Meeting Spiral - Learn what it takes to get your meetings to move in the right direction.

NEW 79. Hard Facts about Soft Skills -

NEW 80. Work is One Big Fat Teachable Moment -