Transformational Team-building©
Creating a unified team and work environment by Celebrating Humanity©.
By Arthie & Brian Moore, 28 May 2004 - info@africa-dreams.com

Transforming ourselves, our teams and our lives

In order to develop ourselves and our team at work we need to develop an understanding of our dependency, independency and inter-dependency. Once we understand that we need each other to survive and succeed we will observe that our actions, positive or negative, impact ourselves, our teams and our dependents.

It is true that the quality of life that we lead, the clothes that we wear, the humanity that we exude, the food on our table, the education of our family depends on the quality of our relationships within and outside of the workplace.
When seen in this context we begin to understand that there is a vital need for teamwork for us all to succeed. And the more diverse the backgrounds, skills and talents of the team, the more we win. The challenge is that teams will only win through respect, tolerance and understanding and that is our starting point.

Accountability for who we are...

The first steps would be to develop an understanding of our intra-personal uniqueness and the ability to assess the uniqueness in other people in terms of their personality types and learning/ communication styles. These simple skills will develop interpersonal understanding and communication skills.

When we take responsibility for our attitudes, our communication and our behaviour we can create a safe environment for ourselves, our families and other people.

To further develop a nurturing environment we develop problem-solving and solution-finding skills and learn to handle reactions to external stimuli. Often we act out of historical programming when a short time for thought will break the cycle of anger. When we use the feeling of anger as a signal for thought, "Why am I feeling this anger?" or "Is this person saying this to hurt me?", we have an opportunity to respond rather than react. This can saves lives, families, sales and relationships!

As these processes unfold we will begin to identify and break down old prejudicial paradigms.

Accountability for how we behave

At the level of respect all people are equal.

Most companies and organisation send down a list of management-decided values. Very few people subscribe to the values, especially management, and they are only paraded at disciplinary hearings.

In order for our individual change to be perpetuated within our team it is critical that the environment is kept safe and empowering by a team-decided and managed set of interpersonal values.

This people-centred guidance system, if properly designed and implemented, will develop an ethic of praising and honouring the praiseworthy..

Those who have personal challenges will often need professional support and those who continuously break the rules must be disciplined. Regular meeting time must be committed to allow the development of understanding and to offer guidance to those who break their self-chosen values. The greater team manages the ongoing process offering support, guidance and discipline in a properly constituted system.

In this way we will have developed accountability and responsibility for our actions, within our team and an ongoing values structures to maintain respect and teamwork at the level of human interaction.

A good leadership team will be part of the development and ongoing implementation of such a programme and will be subject to the decisions of the structure.

Through Transformational Team-building© programmes such as Celebrating Humanity©, people will come to understand their amazing relevance as individuals, team members and members of their organisations.