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This seminar is about creative collaboration. The harsh reality is that in order for organizations to be competitive and cost-effective, they must deliver consistently high quality services to their external as well as internal clients. The question is not whether to integrate quality improvement principles into the organization, but how to "enhance" the process.
Although the concept of teams is not new, the process of shaping effective teams is still evolutionary. Professionals need to understand the dynamics, issues and challenges of this form of accomplishing work. In order for teams to function effectively, they must be trained to do so, and as teams form, they need to pay attention to their processes as well as to procedures that help them function effectively. Effective teamwork does not happen naturally, it takes practice. Team building and team training includes making decisions about goals, roles, procedures and inter-personal functioning and the ability to specify the objectives the team is attempting to achieve. Periodically asking the question "What keeps us from being as effective as we might be?," strengthens the team and keeps it on target. Team members may need training in communication skills, problem identification, problem-solving strategies, and other skills. An integral part of team training is an understanding of how teams develop and the issues they face in each stage of development. As professionals become more aware of the positive correlation between teamwork and performance, their need increases for more knowledge about team development and about the factors that contribute to and detract from team effectiveness. This seminar will summarize the stages of team development and the team issued behaviors that occur in each.
Many problems arise simply because team members are not clear about what they expect of one another. A sense of unity and identification with the whole is more likely to exist in innovative, integrative organizations than in highly segmented ones because of the structure, smell and the culture that grows out of it. A shared philosophy, team building and family feeling cannot be simulated or imposed artificially; it has to derive from the way work is done. The objective of this seminar is to outline specific strategies and procedures to facilitate teamwork.
Learning how to break the structural barriers of communication, encourage the healthy exchange of ideas, and facilitating joint efforts to solve problems are but a few of the important components of this seminar.
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