Team Building Essentials for Corporate

How to build team of people in a corporate? Through training, through motivation, through giving gifts, by taking the people out for a picnic? Building a team is an arduous task. Only when people work in team, success becomes possible.

We will get the best answer to the question of how to build a team from the animal world as different animals display the best team spirit in nature.

Whooping crane can be taken as the best model for team work. Both male and the female bird incubate the eggs in shifts. Equal responsibility is displayed by both the partners in nursing the young one.

In the case of hornbill, the male or female lock themselves up inside the nest, cover the entrance of the nest with mud and leaves, leaving a small aperture and then incubate the eggs. The female /male hornbill searches out the food, gathers it and feed the bird in the nest through the small aperture, until the eggs are hatched out.

In the case of many other pair bond forming birds, especially in crane species and other passerine birds, both partners equally involve in building the nest. In many other birds, when the female incubate the eggs, the male involve in the act of food gathering and guarding the nest.

In the case of an elephant herd, the young calves are milked by all the lactating female elephants. They do not differentiate the calves based on who the real mother is.

What message these scientific truths convey to the corporate. Team work wins and no team work, the team will sink. How to evoke a team feeling in people? To make people to work as team, all the members of the team should be made to feel as equal partners, have equal contribution to make and are equal beneficiaries. Law of socialism and not capitalism or feudalism should be the guiding principle in team building.

In the case of all the animals cited as an example, feels that they have a very common goal and purpose to achieve. Procreation is the primary responsibility of every living creature. Parents should make equal contributions in parenting. This is how the team spirit should be. Unfortunately, the corporate attempt to build a team by selecting one individual as the team head, further hierarchy and ramifications, actually destroy the team spirit and never unite people to work as team. The message of unity never been followed but the rule of 'you listen to him/her' and 'let he/she listens to you' and 'report to me' if there is any aberration.

A team of people are not made through the above process but only creating millions of mutiny. It is not harmony but noise and not the bridge but the gaps are only getting created between people by the above process. Corporate should send their people to watch the nature and learn the secret of how to be a contributor not a spoil sport.

About the Author: Dr S Ranganathan
Dr S Ranganathan, Director, ClinRise Derma Pvt., Ltd., Chennai