In HR consulting, often I hear leaders say that team building is great—but they just don’t have time.

When I drill down, the assumption I find is that team building needs to take hours—even days—to be effective. In reality it is the value of consistent team building that has the greatest impact rather than the amount of time spent.

Give yourself a break! Team building can be done in 15 minutes or less! To make it most effective decide on what message(s) you want your team building to convey and center your activities around that message.  Consider the following examples:

Message: Value the unique contributions of each person within the team.

Team Exercise One:

Have each team member take a piece of paper and write their name at the top. Pass the paper clockwise and when they get someone else’s paper, they should write one thing they value about that person. Continue passing the papers until each person has their own paper back. Have team members take turns reading their paper out loud. Finally,  close the exercise by encouraging team members to keep this paper handy when they need to remember what their team values in them. This exercise not only builds the esteem of each person, but reminds everyone to think about what they value in each other.

Team Exercise Two:

Prior to the meeting, have each team member map out the core responsibilities of their job and identify what other roles on the team are impacted by each responsibility. In the meeting, have team members pair up and give them three minutes to share their maps with their partner. Do four rounds of this and then come back and debrief by explaining that nothing we do is in a vacuum. Encourage them to get with each other before the next meeting and add more detail to their maps. Managers could have many uses for these maps; yet, the primary goal is to get the team thinking about how what they do impacts others on the team.

What quick and effective team building ideas do you use? Please share!

Jennifer Rufatto is a consultant at FlashPoint. She focuses her consulting in the areas of workplace learning, leadership development, and strategic planning.

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As one of FlashPoint’s newest team members and as part of my onboarding and performance management goals, I read The Business of Consulting by Elaine Biech (Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, 1999). The book describes success in the consulting business as deriving from the following major areas (assuming that expertise in the subject area has already been achieved):

• First—understanding the consulting environment that one is entering
• Second—developing a business and marketing plan and continually working both plans
• Third—providing excellent customer service and professionalism ALL the time to ALL clients

Approaching a consulting business by taking these steps will help ensure success.

As I relate this book to me and FlashPoint’s team, I realize that each of us plays a role in the human resource consulting business, even if we don’t have “consultant” behind our name. The pieces of the business, initiated by our two principals, are now “owned” by all the members of our team. We are all responsible for the success of FlashPoint, according to our spot on the team. My spot: marketing.

The book’s purpose is to help one decide if he or she is suited for the consulting business. My reading affirmed something that I’ve known about myself for some time now: I do not have the entrepreneurial spirit possessed by FlashPoint’s principals and some of my colleagues to independently be a consultant, let alone start a business. This is evident through choices I’ve made my whole life. For example, in high school I chose team-related activities such as choir and cheerleading versus more individualized sports such as tennis or swimming.

What I do have is the spirit to serve on FlashPoint’s team and help facilitate its success and growth. I like my spot on the team. To that I say, “Go team!”

Do you clearly know what role you serve on your team? If so, please share how you came to that understanding.

Image: Julie Elliott-Abshire

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