Even though the world seems lonely sometimes, we aren’t truly alone. With seven billion and more people in the world, we’ll always find ourselves in groups, communities and teams. We often find ourselves in group settings, and it’s not our fault. We have to be there as a means of survival or to achieve a specific goal. From one’s place of employment, a class at school or even a structured group such as organisations—we may always find ourselves working with others.

With that in mind, working with others is not a walk in the park. We come from different backgrounds with different belief systems. We all will have a difference of opinion in how things ought to be done. Unfortunately, sometimes people are just randomly put together to work to achieve goals and they’re expected to do just that. It’s more effort than most people would like to believe. Hence, most successful companies and groups practise team building and understand its importance. It’s a concept discussed in most spaces where people work together, but is it effectively practised?

The standard definition of a team is a group of people working together to achieve a common goal. Teamwork involves defining what that goal is and how you can work collaboratively in a group to achieve such. Team building is the method or practice used to ensure that a team works together effectively without much conflict or tension. Team building comes in many forms and can be used to evoke different outcomes. A cohesive team doesn’t automatically create itself. With that in mind, the responsibility lies with the team leader to ensure team building is practised based on the needs of the group.

Team building activities are usually centered around four key areas: communication-focused, trust-building, problem-solving, and decision-making. To accomplish the goals set out, the team ought to have a sense of responsibility and focus to do so. The team members should also set clear guidelines on how they want to achieve said goals. Effective communication is perhaps one of the most important aspects of team building because there will be no progress without it.

At the end of the day, the team leaders’ proposed team-building approaches should be practical to the dynamics of the group in question. We simply can’t afford to accomplish certain goals without the help of others and I hope we don’t shy away from the idea of such. Instead, we should work on our weaknesses in teams while highlighting our strengths. No man is an island and the least we can do is enhance our abilities to work together to achieve the common goals at hand.