Why business needs team building training?

We got a very interesting enquiry from a client last week. What started off as a request for an interpersonal skills session, soon evolved into a team building training requirement. And from understanding the requirement, you will be able to clearly understand why businesses need team building training.

So, the client gave me a call last week. She said she needed a one-day training on interpersonal skills for a particular team in her organisation. As usual, I then got down to asking her a string of questions. What were the challenges the team was facing, how was it impacting them, etc.

I must say she gave me a very detailed answer which helped me understand the problem very quickly. She said that there were a lot of conflicts happening within the team. Individuals were having arguments and it was spreading a lot of negativity throughout the organisation. People were reacting to one another and tempers were running wild. Work was getting hampered and the overall morale of the employees was going down. She felt that the employees lacked interpersonal skills training and did not know how they should behave with one another.

Our conversation gave me the feel that what we were looking for was a training on conflict management. If we could teach the team how to behave with one another and also give them awareness on how they may come across to each other, they would be willing to alter their ways and come together as a team.

I then asked the client to fill up our training need identification form too. You see, it gives clients a chance to think deeply about what their needs are, as we tend to forget things while on a call. And that’s precisely what it did.

The client also came up with the various components of team building training like communication and collaboration, leadership, taking initiative, etc. that the team required. And that’s when we were actually able to put a finger on what we needed to deliver. A team building training that experientially made the participants understand the importance of each of these team building components along with a one-day training on conflict management. This would help the team in taking their first step to resolving their differences and work together more efficiently. It would also help them get a hold on their emotions and how they display them. Yes, the duration of the session had increased by a day, but it was now exactly what was needed by the group and provided a more holistic approach to the issue.

We also decided to package the session as a team building training rather than an interpersonal skills training. Why? Because the acceptability of a team building training will normally be higher than that of an interpersonal skills training in such a scenario. And ensuring that our participants look forward to a training session is an important part of our job. And teaching them what they need and in the best and most harmonious manner, our forte!