It was Lori’s turn to talk, “After the hurricane, in the midst of all this, without power, downed traffic lights, dodging piles of debris on the side of the road, our team members showed up. We had no air conditioning. They had to share computers running off of generators. Our land line phone service was down and only three cell phones could receive a usable signal. The warehouse guys had to manually keep track of things on a clipboard, and be neat about it. They really came together as a team.”

People often ask me for ways to go about building teamwork. They suggest things like ropes courses, sensitivity training, personality and communication seminars. I always respond the same way.

If you want to build a team, gather the group together and give them a real problem to solve. Give them a problem that is difficult, where the outcome makes a genuine difference. Give them a problem where the challenges require them to cooperate and support each other’s efforts. Solving real problems builds real teams. -TF