Team
Building & The Hawthorne Experiments
(read
about Hawthorne Experiments)
Teambuilding
in Singapore has a very broad meaning (see
teambuilding & team bonding); it may mean very different
things to different organisations. To some teambuilding may simply
mean building cohesion among participants, while to others it
may mean improving communication and sharing of information between
departments. In essence, it can mean anything that helps you improve
group performance.
If team
building is new to your organisation, you may want to use the
lessons from the Hawthorne
Experiments to help you identify some specific areas of that
you can begin with.
According
to the Hawthorne Experiments, these are four areas of a work team
that can affect productivity:
•
relations between supervisors and workers.
Do supervisors
and workers have a healthy working relationship? Are the supervisors
trained on skills like coaching
and supervision,
communication
and leadership?
Are there any unfair treatments in the department? Are there systems
in place to ensure fair treatment of workers? If we need to address
issues in this area, then you can focus on team bonding, leadership
and communication skills.
There are
two ways to improve systems and workflow at the work place. One
of them is to enlist the help of consultants who will work with
you to fine tune the systems at your office. The other way is
to use exercises like “Teams-Talk”
to brainstorm for improvements at the workplace, these exercises
are especially useful during teambuilding
sessions or other casual settings. In this way, the workers
will feel that they are part of the decision making process.
•
Workgroup norms in the organisation.
What is
the standard set for the staff? How appropriate is this standard
compared across industry? Do the staff perceive this as a “fair
day’s work”? Historical data will provide a good gauge
of what is a fair level of work to require from workers, provided
that there are no major changes in the industry. Information can
also be gathered when interviewing new staff from companies in
similar industries or through external research agencies.
If your
workers are performing way below the industry standard, then we
must find out the reason and manage the change towards healthier
workgroup norms. On the other hand, if production is far ahead
of competition, we must keep our workers motivated to continue
the favorable situation. We must also find out about the stress
level and fatigue level of the workers and manage them wisely
so as not to create problems in the future.
One team
activity that we usually recommend to companies (especially the
first timers), is “änergy
picasso”. This is a very good exercise to get reasonably
truthful feedback from your staff. Getting an external consultant
to conduct this exercise or using an anonymous survey to assist
you can achieve similar results. Engaging external consultants
will, in many cases, get higher participation and more candid
feedback from staff as it guarantees anonymity. Conducting picasso
in a casual setting will also help to get more candid feedback
as participants are more relaxed and open.
•
Culture of the work force.
What is
attitude of the worker when he is first employed by the company?
How has this attitude changed when he is integrated into the work
force? What brings about the change? These are questions which
may help us rate the culture of our workforce.
Education
in work culture will help workers be more aware of how they can
affect the morale of their colleagues. Understanding the fact
that being positive and supportive is contagious will not only
encourage others but also motivate them as it instills a social
responsibility. activities focusing in this area serve as an informal
approach to inculcate these values.
Reward systems
that encourage desired behaviour in this case will do two things:
It will reinforce positive behaviour; and create the “Hawthorne
Effect” (bring about positive behaviour in the workforce
because they know that they are being monitored).
•
Does management express concern toward their employees?
Is there
freedom of speech at the workplace? Do they have avenues to make
suggestions to improve working conditions or help increase productivity?
Are they rewarded if they meet certain targets? Medical insurance,
car allowances, bonuses, rewards, birthday celebrations or offs
and team building retreats are just some common ways that organisations
show concern toward their employees. How many of such measures
do you have in place?
Experiential Learning
during our sessions
Having conducted
teambuilding sessions for participants from different countries,
including Hong Kong, India, Phillipines, Thailand as well as many
others, we realised that teambuilding with Asians can be a tricky
issue, some bosses and managers do not communicate as much as
they would like to in the office, especially when it comes to
recognising the good work of their subordinates.
We have
also developed programmes that uses "experiential learning"
to not only help bond participants while they are enjoying themselves
while playing games, but also impart valuable lessons on working
together. During our sessions, we reinforce positive behaviours
during debriefs and point out areas of improvement to participants
by comparing their performace with the performance of other groups
that have gone through our programmes. As they are reminded of
the different stages of the games during debrief, it helps them
experience the lesson instead of just listening to it.
Why
not let us kick start the "hawthorne effect" in your
company today?
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